Chapter 20

Vesta, 4 Kedaa, 4395 Orthodox Calendar

                Tuesday, 30 November, 2008, Native Regional Reckoning

                CNN Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Terra

        Every television screen on Earth shared the same image.  It was a handsome young man, with green eyes and blond hair, dressed in a black Faey formal robe, sitting behind a glass desk.

        “Good evening.  I am Jason Karinne, Grand Duke of the House of Karinne, and effective immediately, I have operational control of the planet Earth.

        “As most of you realize, I’m a human being.  But, for reasons I’ll explain in more detail in a press release tomorrow, I’ve been installed as the leader of the Faey noble house of Karinne.  The short of it is that one of my ancestors was a Faey, and that Faey was a member of the ruling family of the House of Karinne.  Since I’m the last known survivor of that family, the house comes to me.  And since I am a human, I’ve claimed the right of first option for Earth.  Effectively immediately, House Trillane no longer has control of this planet.  I do.

        “As I’m sure many of you who live in areas where Faey work have noticed, there’s a sudden influx of Faey soldiers wearing black armor.  These soldiers are Imperial Marines sent by the Empress Dahnai Merrane to ensure that the withdraw of Trillane from Earth is orderly and complete.  While Trillane withdraws from the planet, these Marines will be assuming temporary control of all governments and law enforcement agencies.  For the next few days, Earth will be under a state of martial law while Trillane evacuates.  But don’t worry, my friends, this is a good kind of martial law, because the Marines are here to protect us from any attempts by Trillane to sabotage our planet or do any kind of damage while they are evicted from Earth.  For the next week, I ask that everyone please stay home, limit your trips outside to going to the store for needed supplies, and to keep close to your vidlinks and keep yourself updated on the current news.

        “Once Trillane has left our planet, we will be partially returning to our original system of government, at least up to a point.  Every living former leader of the old nations of Earth either has been or is currently being contacted by emissaries of House Karinne, and it will fall upon your former leaders to reinstate their original governments.  But I’ll make this very clear, right now.  Neither the Marines nor House Karinne will tolerate any dispute over these governments by elements within the nations.  If you were in a nation that was in the middle of a civil war, you are stuck with the government that had official recognition from the United Nations when the Subjugation began.  And there will be no more civil wars.  Humans will never fight humans again, not over something as silly as who controls a country.  If you don’t like the government your nation had when the Subjugation began, you are more than welcome to try to effect change in a peaceful and non-violent manner.  Armed insurrections against these governments will be stamped out quickly and forcibly by Imperial Marines.  The Marines are the law, ladies and gentlemen, and they answer to me.

        “Each nation will be sending a delegate to the United Nations, and it is the United Nations that will be assuming the responsibility of governing this planet.  Each nation will be partially independent, allowed to set its own rules and guidelines within its own borders, but it will also be subject to the rules and regulations set forth by the United Nations.  Where the U.N. law contradicts the laws of a nation, the U.N. law will supersede local law.  This will allow each nation to restore its culture, customs, and national pride, but will still make it a part of the collective whole, part of a united Earth.

        “There’s going to be some hard work ahead of us.  Though Trillane is gone, the Imperium will remain, and now it falls upon me to honor the agreements that Trillane made with the Imperium when they won control of our planet.  That’s the price we have to pay to regain a portion of our independence.  The Imperium is hungry, people of Earth.  They are starving, and our planet is a farming powerhouse.  They need us to help feed them, and it pains me to say this, but we need them too.  We need their technology and their skill, and we need their protection from the other governments out in space that would fall on us like a pack of wolves and conquer us if we broke away from the Faey.  But we have won something here, people of Earth.  We aren’t a subject race to the Imperium any more.  We are equals to the Faey now.  A human now sits in the halls of power in the Imperium, and I will do my best to fight tooth and nail for the betterment and welfare of the human race, and I’ll make sure that the human race is given all the rights and privileges as the other races of the Imperium, something we were denied under the rule of Trillane.  We are now partners with the Faey, not slaves.  Now we will show them the kindness and good hearts of the human race.  We will put the past behind us and move forward hand in hand with the Faey instead of being pushed ahead by the barrel of a gun.

        “Why are we going to do this, you ask?  Because the Faey need us.  They desperately need us.  Their people will starve without us.  And we would be sorry excuses for human beings if we turned our backs on those who need  us.  We will continue to produce food for the Imperium, food they desperately need, but now we will do it because we want to do it, not because we are forced to do it.  A new noble house, the house of Suralle, will be arriving soon to replace the Trillanes on the farms, but they will not be our overlords.  They are here to help us, and only to help us.  They have no voice here.  They have no authority here.  They are here only to supply us with the infrastructure and technical skill we need to continue our farming efforts, and that is it.  I will say this right now. If anyone has any negative experience with a worker or noble from the house of Suralle, I want you to report this incident to a Marine barracks or your local government immediately.  I will not tolerate any mistreatment of our planet or our people by the Suralles, and it will fall upon you, the people of Earth, to help the Imperial Marines to watch the Suralles and make sure they keep their word.

        “Naturally, because we will continue to farm, that will necessitate a certain amount of continuation of the Faey’s ways.  There will still be mandatory farm work, but that work will not be forever.  A summons to a farm will not be a ticket into slavery, and the farm lotteries are hereby forever abolished.  A plan is being worked out now so nobody works on a farm for more than two months out of any year, and no more than a year total farm work in a span of ten.  And you will be paid for this service, people.  You will be paid very well, a salary that will probably be more than or equal to what you make now at your current job.  People may also volunteer to work on a farm if that is their desire, and those people will be receive a larger salary for that voluntary service.  There are more than enough people on Earth to allow us to continue to produce food in the quantity the Faey need to help keep their people fed but not condemn us to a life of forced farm labor.  We will spread the burden out as wide as possible, so everyone does just a little, instead of some doing it all.

        “There is one more matter, a matter I regret to have to bring forward, but something that needs to be done.  The Trillanes were engaged in wholesale illegal kidnapping of human beings for illegal purposes, and the House Karinne will need your help to try to get them back.  If anyone you know has disappeared or has been forcibly taken by the Trillanes, you need to report this fact.  Contact numbers are going to be set up by tomorrow afternoon, you can file a report in person at any Marine barracks, and a Civnet site will also be opened where you can report this online.  Please, we need your help.  We have to know who was taken so we can try to find them and bring them home.  Empress Dahnai herself has pledged Imperial support in this effort to find and recover our missing people.  So please, we need you to report anyone you know is missing.  When you do, give as much information you can, and if you have any pictures of the abducted people, those would really help.

        “But I promise you, people of Earth, it will never happen again.  As long as we continue to meet the quotas of food production the Empress has set, we will be allowed to look after ourselves.  Remember that.  As long as we fulfill the obligation Trillane made when they won the right to farm Terra, we can keep ourselves out from under the heel of another Faey noble house.  I know it’s not much of an improvement to go from the control of one house to another, from the Trillanes to the Karinnes, but at least with me, you know you’re getting someone who cares about what happens to you.  I am a human, and I will do my best to make sure that we will be both respected and treated with dignity by the Faey.  That is my solemn promise.

        “In closing, I have just one more thing to say.  I am no noble, and I’m no politician.  I will make mistakes, and I’m sure some of them will be real whoppers.  So please, have some patience with me.  I’ll be working my butt off for you, and if you give me a little leeway, I promise I’ll be the best Grand Duke I can be, a Grand Duke that works for the people, not a Grand Duke that expects the people to work for him.  This too is my solemn promise to you.  This is not my planet.  I am not a ruler.  It’s just my bad luck that I’ve been thrust into this unwanted position, but I’m here, so I have to do my best to make sure it’s done right.  I’ll do everything I can to help Earth and the human race regain its dignity, and together, if we all work hard, we can build something that our children will be proud of.

        “Thank you, good day, and good luck.  May God bless us and watch over us, because we’re going to need it.”

Raira, 33 Kedaa, 4395 Orthodox Calendar

                Saturday, 25 December, 2008, Native Regional Reckoning

                The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, New York, USA, Terra

        Christmas was supposed to be a day of family, good cheer, and rejoicing.

        This Christmas was the most special Christmas ever, for the entire planet was celebrating.  For on this day, the United Nations had reopened.  It only had three officials there in any real capacity, but it was open for business and ready for when the nations reorganized themselves and sent their ambassadors.  Right now, only three nations had seated ambassadors:  the United States, China, and Great Britain.  Those three nations had been fastest in reseating their old governments after Trillane was kicked off, though it certainly wasn’t complete.  Jason had ordered that each government’s original governmental structure would be reinstated, and that was still a work in progress just about everywhere else.

        America had been the first to get back into operation.  The entire government that had been seated when the Faey arrived was recalled to Washington and simply picked up right where they left off.  The President, the Congress, and seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were back, and they were already getting things back into operation…or at least mostly.  Now, they knew, they were like a state government, for they now answered to the United Nations, and it was that entity that would allot them their yearly budget amount for them to spend, and any laws they passed couldn’t contradict U.N. law.  But the U.N. would be relatively inobtrusive, and that was by intentional design.  It would interfere with the member nations as little as possible, letting the old nations look after themselves with only the lightest of touches to ensure that things were being done to the satisfaction of House Karinne, and the biggest concern for House Karinne was that the food continued to be produced at the set quotas.  As long as the food was being shipped out, the people of Earth could do anything they wanted short of start wars with each other.

        Jason had been there of course, the Grand Duke Jason Karinne and his wife, the Duchess Jyslin Karinne, opening the doors of the United Nations building as cameras took pictures and video cameras caught the event live.  There was even a pair of INN crews there to do stories on the event.

        But that was over now, and Jason was taking a breather in the room they were renting.  He didn’t want to stay in the Waldorf, but he was the Grand Duke, and the mayor of New York had been scandalized when he asked for just some room in a hotel near the U.N. building.  He got thrown here basicly against his will, but he didn’t take the penthouse, as a determined sign to everyone that he did not think he was above them.

        It was really strange.  They were actually homeless.  They had no house of their own.  For the last month, he’d been moving from hotel to hotel, running all over the fucking planet trying to iron out all the problems and talking to the leaders of the old countries.  It sure wasn’t easy, on him or anyone else.

        It had been so nice and quiet when they first got back.  The first thing he did was invite the entire Legion into the house, and they all agreed.  Everyone was a Count or Countess now, except for Kumi.  When Jason offered her a place in his house, she demanded a higher rank, since she was already a Countess, and besides, he needed her.  That was true enough, and he had to bow to her blackmail.  So instead of being the Countess Eleri Trillane, she was now the Duchess Eleri Karinne.  And it was her expertise in how noble houses worked, and education in house operations and her knowledge of business, that let them get where they were now.  Thanks to her, House Karinne already had a house bank account on Moridon, she had worked out a financial plan with Anya Suralle, and a material deployment schedule had been worked out.  Kumi had worked fast, and he’d be lost without her.  If Jason was the face of House Karinne, Kumi was its brain.

        Quiet…well, up to a point.  After two days sequestered with Jyslin, interrupted only by visits to court, time she demanded and time he was more than happy to give her, he caught up with the others, and saw that things had moved along since he was captured.  There were only 21 surviving members of the Legion; the rest had been killed in action, and Sheila Hart had been killed in an accident in the mountain.  Ian had expressed while he was gone, and Jason had learned that Temika had started dating Mike Colbert, which was a very good thing.  She was finally overcoming her phobia about being touched.  And in a rather curious turn of events, within days of getting back, Songa had taken up with Luke.  This surprised Jason, but then he stepped back and looked at it a little more closely.  Both of them had lost the focus of their lives, Luke his family and Songa her husband, and they seemed to sense the melancholy emptiness in each other.  And since both of them were compassionate, good people, they wanted to help each other, fill that void with something that could never replace what was lost, but something that would at least ease that pain and make life bearable again.  In just three days, Songa had become quite attached to Luke, and by the end of the week, they were living together.  It was a good match, as far as Jason was concerned.  Luke would treat Songa like a queen, and Songa would treasure Luke’s gentle attention.

        Myra wasn’t too happy about it.  It seemed that Myra had designs on Luke.

        The House of Karinne went from 12 to 33 members, but none of them really did all that much right now.  Myri had taken over as the commander of the Scimitar, and she kept most of the Marines with her, keeping the ship manned at all times.  Myleena was in heaven up there, tearing the ship apart one little piece at at time and learning how it all worked, then putting it back together.  The others were basicly working as gophers, running back and forth between various countries as Jason’s representatives, just seeing how things were going and getting status reports on when each country hoped to be back up to the self-governing level and when they’d be sending ambassadors to the U.N.

        If only he could spend more than two days in a row on Earth.  Every other day, it seemed, he had to rush off to Draconis to attend court, and when he was there, it was like another war.  The Siann didn’t know what to make of him, but they certainly didn’t like him.  It was nothing but arrogant looks when he was there, and the only nobles that would talk to him where members of house Suralle.  The new representative of Trillane in court since Maeri was banished, the Duchess Myana Trillane, Maeri’s eldest daughter, couldn’t take her eyes off him, and those eyes promised a horrid, painful death if she could ever catch him alone.  The fine that Dahnai blackmailed out of Trillane had been crushing.  It nearly bankrupted the house, and obviously, they were blaming Jason for it.  They couldn’t do much to avenge themselves against Dahnai, but Jason was a very available target.  After the first court, where Jason introduced Jyslin to the Empress, Dahnai ordered her guards to escort Jason around, because she was worried that someone from Trillane might actually attack him.  Attacks within the palace were not unheard of.

        The only relief came after court, but it wasn’t much relief.  After court, without fail, Dahnai summoned him to her quarters.  There, three things happened.  She taught him how to use his telekinetic abilities, he began training her in the forms of Akido so she could better defend herself, and she missed no chance to try to trick him or push him into saying something about the Karinnes that would give his knowledge away.  Every damn session was a chess match of caution with Dahnai, for she was relentless.  He really had to push the line between subject and friend with her, because she knew he knew the secrets of the Karinnes, and she wanted to know those secrets.  She would alternate between trying to trick him into saying too much, trying to catch him off guard, and there was the occasional outright orders for him to tell her the truth.  But, to her credit, she had not used her talent to try to find out.  She was as bad as Jyslin, a fucking pit bull that had latched onto his leg and would not let go.  She used her status as Empress as a club against him, for he could not deny any summons she made.  That was the law.  If she summoned him to her presence, he was legally obligated to show up.

        She did seem to establish some rules in her mind.  She wouldn’t threaten him with retaliation if he didn’t tell her.  She didn’t use her talent, or have someone else do it for her.  And while she was a typical Faey with a few modesty issues because she was accustomed to having someone watching her at all times, she kept her hands off him, not trying to seduce the answer out of him, despite him getting the feeling that she did want to put her hands on him.  He knew that if she had any kind of sexual attraction to him, she’d act on those impulses without batting an eye.  She was the Empress, she could have any man she wanted and they could not, by law or by custom, deny her advances.  Sometimes, though, when she looked at him, he could tell that she did have those impulses.  He could tell when he was being undressed by her eyes.  But she refused to bow to those impulses, wouldn’t even admit to him that she had them, which was what a Faey would do.  Kumi was the perfect example…from the first meeting, she made her attraction to him abundantly clear, as well as her intent to bed him.  He wasn’t sure why Dahnai was doing what she was doing, and that made her very mysterious.

        But, he couldn’t deny that he liked her.  When she wasn’t trying to dig what he knew out of him, she was an intelligent, witty, charming young lady with a razor wit and an almost supernatural ability to see the smallest detail.  She also learned fast, he had to admit.  As he learned the basics of telekinesis, she learned the basics of Akido.  And after they shared their knowledge, they would talk, about anything and everything.  Jason learned a hell of a lot from Dahnai on the basics of leadership, learned quite a bit about the various houses of the Siann and the current alliances and enmities, and learned quite a bit about Dahnai herself.  She was unmarried but had two children, sired by a Merrane male chosen by the house, a five year old son and a three year old daughter…which she only saw once every ten days.  By custom, the Empress didn’t care for her own children, couldn’t be burdened with that responsibility when she had an empire to oversee.  They were being raised by foster parents from Merrane until they were ten, when they would be allowed to live with their mother.  That seemed cruel to Jason, but to Dahnai, it was just the way it was.  She loved her children very much, and was already counting down the months until her son, Maer, would come live with his mommy.  Then her daughter, the Crown Priness Sirri, would come live with her two years later, and they’d be a family.

        It was custom for the Empress to produce the heir before marrying, since the Empress didn’t marry at the behest of the house.  She’d already produced her heir with the chosen male, carefully selected for his lineage and pedigree, so now she was free to marry.  Empresses often married for political gain, but did not always do so.  Unlike other high-ranking noble women, Dahnai was free to marry anyone she wanted, not who was chosen for her for maximum political gain.  Being the Empress, no one could make her marry anyone.

        It didn’t take long until Jason saw Dahnai as a close friend.  Despite the tension between them concerning his silence, she really liked him, and he really liked her.  He was as close to her as he was to Kumi…probably even closer.  And what was just a bonus was that Jyslin and Dahnai really hit it off.  There was a great deal of discomfort on Jyslin’s part at first, because she was the Empress, but after the shock of that wore off and Jyslin started seeing Dahnai for who she was instead of her title, they started getting to know each other.

        The Siann took note of this personal attention, as did INN, and that was probably half the problem.  Jason found it impossible to get back to Karis and see how things were going with Cybi because several Faey media organization followed him around everywhere he went.  INN had to be the worst of them, but that god damned tabloid Civnet site The Examiner was horrific because they resorted to paparazzi-style tactics to get pictures of him and Jyslin, of the other members of Karinne, and everyone they associated with.  He was hoping that they’d lose interest in him, but the combination of his unusual rise to status and the Empress’ personal, intimate intersest in him made him like a fucking rock star to the Faey.  Everywhere he went, there was a camera and a reporter, people asking him questions, and annoying the hell out of him.  As the days moved on, it got worse and worse out in the world, but things within court got…weird.  Nobles began cautiously approaching him, saying nothing of importance, just trying to engage him in smalltalk.  He seemed to be in favor with the Empress, and he realized they were testing the waters, seeing if he might be amenable to them, and through him gain the Empress’ ear.

        He dreaded going there now.  Not because of Dahnai or the Siann, but for an entirely different reason.  He noticed it about two weeks ago, when he and Dahnai had spent an afternoon outside.  He’d gotten sunburned, and after applying some burn-heal to it, he ran to Songa immediately, going all the way back home to do so, for his skin had taken on an unpleasant grayish pall.  He feared he’d had some kind of allergic reaction to the burn-heal.  She gave him a thorough examination, then laughed and told him that it wasn’t a medical problem.

        Jason was part Faey, and exposure to Draconis’ sun was triggering his hybrid melanin to protect itself.

        And it was turning him blue.

        The blue tint in his skin was noticable now, and it merged with his beige skin to produce a dusky, almost grayish hue.  It was like any tan, it would darken with more exposure and fade if he stayed out of the sun, which would allow the blue to fade completely.  Jyslin thought the idea of him turning blue was entirely proper, but she was terribly biased.  Jason hated the idea of it, and now he didn’t go to Draconis without wearing long sleeves and carrying an umbrella to shield him from the sun.  He didn’t want to turn blue.  He wanted this blue tint to fade and go back to his normal coloring, and it had been doing so.  It was very faint now, and after a couple more days, it would be gone entirely.  He’d just have to be careful from now on to limit his exposure to the sun while he was on Draconis, or he’d turn as blue as a Faey.

        It wasn’t just him either.  Tim and Ian had gone with him to Draconis last week, and both of them had come home sunburned.  And just like him, their skin started taking on a bluish undertone.  Temika had laughed at them, but when she went to Draconis the last time Jason had to go to court, spending all day outside, she came back looking like an Aborigine, her creamy brown skin turning almost purple because her melanin too tried to turn blue once it was exposed to the Draconis sun.  She didn’t laugh at them anymore.

        He was glad Karis’ sun wouldn’t do that to him.  He hadn’t been back since leaving with the Scimitar because of all the attention, but he was keeping abreast of things.  Cybi could communicate with him using the Scimitar as a transceiver, and she contacted him at least twice a day to give him status reports, and also just to talk. The Kimdori remained on Karis, continuing to repair everything they could find.  They had restored operations on all but two of the reclamation robots, and those robots were again working to restart the planet’s ecosystem.  And to his surprise, the Kimdori were starting to rebuild.  They seemed to have this notion that the entire planet would be repopulated, so their civil engineers had gone in, brought along old maps and plans of the old cities of Karis, and had every intention of rebuilding every single one of them, putting the planet right back the way it was.  Jason had to intervene at that point.  He did agree with Zaa that rebuilding some of Karis was necessary, but not that kind of large-scale restoration was required.  He allowed Zaa’s people to begin to rebuild one city, the capitol city of Karsa, which was on the coast of the small central continent about 1,000 miles west of the island where Cybi was.  And that was the continent that Jason told Cybi to concentrate on restoring first.  They would start there, on the continent of Dacha, and work their way across the planet.

        The Kimdori hadn’t just been fixing machines.  Zaa had called personally two days ago and told him that the KMS Defiant, or Karinne Military Starship, the cruiser that had been docked in the lunar base, had been fully repaired and was ready for service.  This was not a scout ship. This was a warship, and it was fully armed and armored.  And holy shit, was it ever fucking armed.  It had weapons on it that Jason had never seen before, but they seemed absolutely devastating.  Its main weapon was a striated particle beam projector, a stream of subatomic particles that ripped matter apart.  The Imperium had weapons nastier than this, until one saw that this weapon was fired as a sustained beam.  The beam lasted for nearly six seconds until the projector had to stop to cool off, but during that six seconds, the focusing lens could shift, moving the beam.  The result was a shearing beam that could rake across an enemy ship and literally cut it in half.  The Defiant had three of these particle beam weapons in it, and all three could fire at once.  It also was armed with teryon cannons, weapons similar in behavior to MPAC projectiles, explosive energy blasts that penetrated before detonating.  But the most dangerous weapon on board was actually a defensive system called a torsion wave generator.   It created a spatial shockwave around the ship, kind of like a space earthquake, that did tremendous stress damage to anything caught in the wave.  It was primarily and anti-fighter and anti-missle shield, a defensive system that destroyed anything small that got close to it, but it couldn’t fire if other weapons were being used, because the torsion wave altered the trajectory of any energy beams that passed through it while it was operating.

        Zaa had told him that the two destroyers, the KMS Resolute and the KMS Sora’s Pride would be repaired and ready within two weeks.  The Kimdori had been focusing on the cruiser.

        That was good to know, but right now, the Defiant was just an oversized toy.  He had no crew to man it.

        While Jason was running around the planet like a maniac getting in touch with nation leaders, Suralle had arrived and got to work.  Their first order of business was saving the crops that were currently in the ground, and this they did quickly, taking over seamlessly from the Trillanes.  Those people who had been on the farms like the Suralle way better, for they were nice and helpful, they started working to upgrade the living conditions of the workers, and what was most important, they started handing out hard currency payments to the workers, paying them for their work.  The Trillanes had never paid them; working on a farm was like being in a prison camp, where the borders were fenced in and guarded, everyone worked every day, and nobody got a single credit for their labor.  But the Suralles charged in and started tearing down the fences, started fixing up the dorms, started giving everyone a cash advance on their future pay, and brought in shuttle service so the workers could get to towns and have a night off, have a little fun, and buy what they needed.  The workers were still stuck on the farms and had to do their jobs, but they were all told that they’d only be there until they could get a new personnel system in place, and those who had been on farms under Trillane would never have to work on a farm involuntarily again once they were relieved.  They had a lifetime exemption from compulsory farm duty.  They were welcome to stay on as voluntary workers and receive a healthy salary for their work, but they didn’t have to stay if they didn’t want to.

        Anya Surrale had come to Earth personally and was overseeing this transition, and he often caught rides to Draconis to attend court on her ship, since Anya didn’t miss open court.  He felt like a carpooler.  He did like Anya, though.  She had a shrill, unpleasant voice, but she knew she did and actually preferred to send.  She was an earthy middle-aged Faey woman who had the Faey equivelent of doctorates in chemistry and political science, a very well educated woman who happened to be very nice, and he became friends with her rather quickly.  Anya had been continuing his education in Faey politics, and it was from her that he saw the ugly side of it.  She confided in him—dragging a promise that he wouldn’t tell Dahnai out of him—that both House Dorrane and House Trillane had tried to approach her to form an alliance against Merrane.  Anya could smell an approaching war, and she wanted no part of it.  Suralle was prospering right now, and they had nothing to gain from a civil war that would ravage the Imperium, so she kept her loyalties to Dahnai very public and very known.  The largest four Highborn houses were maybe too large, too powerful, and now they had revolution on their minds.  The Trillane scandal was just the proof that her suspicions were correct, in her mind.  Trillane had started executing a plan to take the throne of the Imperium away from Dahnai, and she knew that Dorrane and Shovalle couldn’t be far behind. She predicted some rough times ahead for Dahnai, since she was the target of these plots, but Anya confided to him that Dahnai was a very smart young lady. She was only 40, which was about 28 in human years, but she’d been on the throne since she was 14, and she was well settled into it.  She was a formidable Empress, and the other houses would be hard pressed to outfox her.

        They had a court date tomorrow, and after the ceremony, Anya had arranged to pick him up from the hotel tomorrow afternoon so they could get there.

        But that was tomorrow.  The ceremony was over, and for the rest of the day at least, they had no obligations.  This was part of his Christmas present to himself, a little free time where he wasn’t running to the next shuttle that would ferry him to another part of the world, dragging his wife in tow and forcing messages to try to chase him down from country to country.

        Jyslin was taking it well enough.  She shared his discomfort for being in the public eye, for she wasn’t a noble, she was a Marine.  Some of the little soundbites they’d picked up from her, Jyslin being Jyslin, had made it onto a few INN newscasts, and that had embarrassed her to no end.  Of course, it was Symone that the cameras really liked to follow, because of her natural charisma, her ease in front of a camera, and her downright naughty demeanor, making her a real media darling, and driving Tim up the wall.  They followed Jason around because he was the Grand Duke, but they loved following Symone around because of what she might say or do next.  She did look a little haggard, though, he noticed as she took off her earrings and put them on the table near the door.  She was wearing a formal robe, a very pleasing cream color that went well with her hair, simple and unadorned, since they hadn’t had the time to really buy any good ones.  They were still wearing the robes that Dahnai had given them when they visited the palace when they dressed formally, clothes from the “rent-a-robe” inventory the chamberlains kept to dress visitors so they could attend the Empress.  They’d both amassed quite the wardrobe of them, for they were given new robes when they attended court for the first couple of weeks, until both of them had 6 or 7 robes to choose from, and they’d just been wearing those ever since.  The other nobles laughed about it, since their generic robes made them look like beggars, but Jason really didn’t give a shit what they thought.  He sure as hell didn’t dress up to impress them, he did it because it was custom to appear before the Empress in formal robes, and that was what he did.

Help me with this, Jyslin called, strating to undo the ties of her robe.  I swear, it takes a fucking maid to get this thing off me.  I feel like a dork that I can’t dress myself.

        I can’t do it either, he reminded her.  Boy, was that ever true.  Anya always spent ten minutes fussing with his robes every time she picked him up, fixing them for him cause he still hadn’t quite got the hang of how they were put on to make it look right.  He dragged her over to the bed and sat down on it, and started working on the complicated series of ties, snaps, and buttons that kept the robes in place.  Anya dragged me into a corner and fixed my robes this morning, before the ceremony.

        I saw that.  So, what do you want to do with the rest of the day?

        Sleep, he sent immediately, but she slapped him on the top of the head, which made him laugh.  I don’t care what we do, hon, as long as we do it together.

        That’s better, she purred mentally, putting her hands on his shoulders.  Wanna get some movies and just snuggle in for the day?

        That sounds wonderful, he agreed.

Did you send out those gifts for your Christmas holiday?

        Yeah, I got them all out yesterday morning.  I just hope they got there in time.  We need to send some thank-you cards out to the guys, too, thanking them for the gifts.

        Curious custom, this Christmas of yours.  We don’t have anything like it.

        Yah well, I’d be surprised if you did, since it’s basicly a religious holiday.  It’s evolved to take on a non-religious aspect as well, but at its core it’s based in religion.  It celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, who is the Messiah in Christianity.

        Leave it there, she warned.  One of the rules of the Fox Shaddale household was that religion was not a topic of discussion.  Jason was a Methodist, and while Jyslin wasn’t very pious, she did at least acknowledge her religious roots in the Trinity.  Neither of them wanted to start a holy war, so religion was a forbidden subject.

I’m not gonna go any further, goof, he chided her, getting the last tie undone that would let her take off the upper garment of the robe.  He stood up and took it from her after she took it off, leaving her bare from the waist up.

Thanks, love, she sent, patting him on the shoulder.  She sat down and started unlacing her slippers, and Jason started working on the laces of his own robe.  There was a fast knock on the door, and the door opened partially.  “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, your Grace, but—“

        The door burst open, and the uniformed hotel worker was pushed aside as Tim and Symone got past him.  “Bugger off, Charlie,” Symone told him, pushing him out of the door when he gawked at Jyslin’s bare breasts, then shut the door behind him.  “I swear, what a jackass,” she growled, looking back at them. Both of them had changed since the ceremony.  Symone and Tim both were wearing tee shirts and faded jeans.  Symone’s tee shirt was a Washington Redskins football logo tee shirt, and Tim’s tee shirt was a plain white unadorned shirt  Hey guys, what’s up?

        Just getting undressed from the ceremony, girl, Jyslin answered, pulling a slipper off.

Here, lemme, Symone told him, coming up to Jason and starting to work on the laces.  You’re a total klutz at this, ya know?

        I didn’t grow up wearing this crap, Jason protested as Symone started working her way down.

Tim-Tim, help Jyslin with her shoes, dink! she ordered.

Sure.

        Thanks, Tim, Jyslin sent as he knelt down and started untying the complicated laces around her calf, and she started on the ties of the waist of her breeches.  She got those undone just as Tim finished taking off her shoe, and she wiggled out of her breeches and panties boldly; the panties Jyslin wore under the robes could be called boxer briefs by some, because the trousers chafed her thighs.  She didn’t like wearing them any time other than when she wore the formal robes.  What are you two up to? she asked as she sat back down and pulled the garments off her legs, then got up and went to the dresser, digging for a new pair of panties.

Eh, we dunno yet, we wanted to see if you two wanted to do something.  We didn’t want to leave you out, Symone answered, finishing her unlacing and helping Jason take the robe off.

        That’s sweet of you, but we weren’t planning on doing anything.  Just curling up on the couch and watching a movie.  You’re welcome to hang around if you want.

        Sounds good to me, Tim sent.  If you two don’t mind company.

        We never mind your company, Tim, Jason told him.

        The door opened again, and Temika walked in, wearing a heavy overcoat to protect her from the New York winter cold. One look in the room would have sent her running two months ago, but now, she had a much better understanding of the relationship between these four people.  After all, it would be easy to read into things seeing Jyslin stark naked, leaning over the dresser drawer with Tim sitting on the bed, while Symone was undressing Jason by the couch.  Two months ago, Temika would have immediately jumped to the conclusion that something kinky was about to happen, but she knew better now. The relationship between these two couples was almost like they were intermarried, and this kind of intimate social interaction was entirely normal for them.  Jyslin had no qualms about parading around naked in front of Tim and Symone, since Symone was her best friend and she’d already had sex with Tim, quite a few times, so there was nothing about her Tim hadn’t seen, touched, or probably kissed, before.  Just as Symone had filled Jyslin’s shoes when she was with Jason and he was separated from Jyslin, Symone had shared her husband with Jyslin while Jason was in Faey custody, providing her with physical comfort and release.  Jyslin had joked that if Tim hadn’t have been there to pop her cork, she’d have been ten times the bitch, and she probably could have run the entire house of Trillane into the ground.  In that time after Jason was captured, poor Tim didn’t sleep in the same bed two nights in a row.  Symone had literally handed him over to her best friend every other day, to give her someone to yell at when she was angry, a shoulder to cry on when she was emotional, and a man to just fuck senseless when she needed it.

        And it didn’t bother Jason at all.  He completely accepted the unusual situation between the four of them, and he was honestly happy that Tim had been there for Jyslin when she needed him.

        “Hey, y’all, what’s up?” she called, closing the door. “Or should Ah just turn around and go?”

        Jyslin laughed.  “No, no foursome today, we’re just changing,” Jyslin told her with a wink and a grin.  “What are you up to, Mika?”

        “That’s not a bad idea, though,” Symone giggled.  “We’ve never done it together.  We should try it.”

        Temika pointedly ignored Symone.  “Ah was gonna go down to Times Square and look around.  They setting it up for New Year’s Eve, and Ah wanted to take a look.  Wanna go?”

        “No thanks, hon, me and Jayce just wanna relax today.  Thanks for the necklace, by the way.  It was lovely.”

        “Ah was hopin’ you’d like it, sugah,” she said with a smile.

        “I love it.  It’ll go really nice with those blue robes the Empress gave me last time I was at court.”

        “Oooh, Mika gave you jewelry?  Show it off!” Symone said excitedly.

        Jyslin opened a small box on the dresser and turned around, showing a blue crystal necklace to Symone.

        “Wow, nice!”

        “Ah remembered you talkin’ about how all the nobles have jewelry, and how you didn’t have none, so Ah thought it would help you out.  Ah just wish Ah could afford real jewels, but Ah thought it was pretty,” Temika said with a flush.

        “Push off, Mika, it’s gorgeous,” Jyslin told her.  “I’d be much prouder to wear your necklace than a whole torque filled with rubies and sapphires.  At least your present came from the heart.  That makes it worth more than jewels.”

        “You better keep it quiet,” Symone told her with a grin.  “If word got out you’re giving Jyslin jewelry, people might think you want between her legs.”

        “Eww!” Temika gasped, then she stalked over and smacked Symone on the shoulder.  “That’s nasty, Symone!  Ah ain’t no lesbo!”

        Symone lurched forward and grabbed Temika’s head, then kissed her full on the lips.  Temika shuddered, then she pushed Symone away, hard.  Temika looked outraged, but Symone just gave her a rogueish grin.  “Yup, you’re right, you don’t like girls.  There was nothing in that kiss at all.”

        “Why you little blue bitch!” Temika shouted, but then she laughed helplessly.  “Ah swear, Ah should kill you, Symone!”

        “Pft, I’m too cute to kill.”

        “You better thank God above for that too, sugah,” she snapped.  “Ah’m leavin’, before Ah do kill Symone.  We’ll bring y’all back some tee shirts, ‘kay?”

        “We?” Tim asked.

        “Me an’ Mike,” she answered.  “Think Ah’d go out there alone, with all those reporters camping the hotel?  They all scared of Mike, they ain’t never seen no man as huge as he is,” she said with an unconscious little trill in her voice.  Temika was highly attracted to heavily developed men.  Mike was a bodybuilder, and his massive frame really appealed to her.  “He chases them away.”

        “Well, have fun Mika.  This time, I expect you to get more than a kiss goodnight!” Symone challenged.  “He’s never gonna make the first move, girl.  Just grab his dick and blow in his ear, that’ll show him what you want!”

        “That’s just too damn forward,” Temika grunted, not blushing at all.  “It ain’t the way a lady behaves.  He might think Ah’m a tramp.”

        “He’s still unsure about you, Mika, he’s not going to do anything you don’t initiate,” Jyslin told her evenly.  “He really wants to be with you, but he knows you’re still dealing with those other issues.  When you’re ready, you have to tell him.  He won’t take the initiative.  We kinda warned him not to.”

        “You really think he won’t think Ah’m a slut?” she asked sincerely.

        “Honey, he wouldn’t care if you were the biggest whore in the Gamia province,” Symone told her.  “So go pull his pants down and show him how much you care.”  She put her finger on her chin.  “And remember it good enough to share an image of it.  I wanna see his dick.”

        “Not my boyfriend, you won’t,” Temika growled, marching out quickly.

Think she’ll get up enough courage this time? Symone sent, looking at Jyslin.

        I hope so.  She just needs to conquer it once, and that should do it.

Symone laughed.  I’m sure the instant she gets Mike’s dick in her, she’ll be cured, she sent with a lustful taint running through her thoughts.  A girl can’t take a dick that looks as big as his without wanting more of it.

        I think I’m gonna have to take your word for that, honey, Tim sent dryly.

You better.  I’ll share you with Jys, but no way am I letting you go to the sheets with a man.

        I’m so glad, he sent dryly.  So, what movie should we get?

        Something new, Symone said as Jyslin stepped into a pair of silky black bikini-style panties and pulled them up.  Wow, nice panties, Jys, they really make you look hot.  New?

        Yeah, I bought them last time we went to Draconis, she answered.  Help me find my black shorts.

        While Symone helped Jyslin root through the drawers to find her shorts, Jason hung up his robe, then he sat down on the couch and took off the boots.  At least for him, it was much easier to take off the shoes.  Men wore soft calf boots by tradition, while women wore long-laced slippers that wrapped around the ankles and lower calves and then tied off.  He took them off and pulled off the trousers, then caught the sweatpants and tee shirt that Jyslin tossed him and put them on.  She put on a pair of short, slinky black shorts and a rather skimpy black half-tank top that barely managed to cover her breasts, and both Jason and Tim had to stop a second to admire how sexy it made her look.

        They decided on watching the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie first, and settled in for a rare afternoon of simple domesticity, quiet time that Jason had been craving and desperately needed.  They watched three movies that afternoon, with Jyslin curled up on one side, and then he had Symone leaning up against the other with her legs thrown over Tim’s lap.  He put an arm around each of them, playing with Jyslin’s gorgeous red hair absently with his fingers as his other arm draped comfortably on Symone’s upper chest, his hand lightly resting on her shoulder, just happy to be.

        He and Jyslin had no home…and he guessed it was about time to address that, he realized as they started watching the Fantastic Four sequel that didn’t interest Jason very much, but Jyslin and Symone had wanted to see it.

        Clearly, negotiation would be required.  Jason hated heat, and Jyslin hated cold, so he figured they would have to split the difference.  Since he could fly his skimmer or Nova wherever he wanted, it meant he could live virtualy anywhere and still get around the planet to do his job.  But he would kinda like to live near New York, since he’d have duties as the head of the U.N., which was his official position.  There would still be a Secretary General to handle the day to day stuff, Jason would just be the guy over him.

        Long Island. There were some houses out there, they could find something close to the ocean and also something fenced in, to give them some space from those maniacal reporters.  It’d be expensive, but Jason still had some money stashed away on Moridon.

        Yeah, they had estates and crap like that out on Long Island.  There had to be one for sale out there, somewhere.

We need a place to live, he announced.  Something more permanent than this.

        Ya think? Symone sent archly.  Me and Tim haven’t looked at anything yet, cause we wanna be close to you guys.

        Well, what about Long Island? he offered.  It’s warm in the summer, cool in the winter, and they have to have some fenced-in estates out there up for sale, so we can get some space from the reporters.  It’s close to the U.N., too.

        Sounds perfect, Jyslin told him, leaning her head against his shoulder.  Let’s start looking tomorrow.

        You can, love, I have court tomorrow, he sent sourly.  Wanna come?

        And watch you flirt with Empress Dahnai?  No thanks.

        I do not flirt! he protested.

You flirt with her every time you tell her no, love.  That drives Faey women crazy, she told him, raising her head and looking him the eyes, smiling knowingly.

Well, this no is not up for negotiation.  She keeps trying to find out what I know of the Karinnes, and I won’t tell her.

        I know.  Just be careful.  Eventually, she’ll get tired of playing this game and come after you much more seriously.

        Yeah, don’t remind me, he sighed.

Me and Symone can help Jyslin look, Jayce, Tim offered.

Sounds great.

        And the matter dropped.  They returned to silent togetherness through the movie.

        When it was over, Symone rubbed her foot against Jason’s leg meaningfully.  “Let’s do it,” she said.

Do what? Jyslin asked.

Together.  Let’s do it.  We’ve never been all together before.  I want to be in the same bed with my husband and my best friends.  I want to be able to reach out and touch the two sexiest men alive at the same time.

        I’d love to.  I’ve been wanting to myself, Jyslin said.  What about it, guys?  Wanna be kinky?

        A few months ago, I’d have thought that was a crazy idea, but not anymore, Jason sent, running his hand up Symone’s leg.  I can’t think of anything better than making love to my wife with my best friends there to share our joy, and I think making love to Symone while Jyslin watches would be interesting.  I want to try it.

I seem to have been outvoted, Tim sent with a laugh.  But I’ll admit, I’ve been thinking of it myself.  We trade off often enough, we should just cut out the middle man.

Damn right.  Now get naked, lover, I’m horny, Symone told him as Jason started unbuttoning her jeans, and as Jyslin pulled her half-shirt over her head.  Ooh, Jason, take charge, baby, she sent with a wink.

        It didn’t take them long to find a place of their own.

        Jason had been right.  There were quite a few estates for sale on Long Island, and some of them were selling dirt cheap, being sold off by people who had been rich before the Subjugation, but then lost their fortunes after the Faey arrived.  The big, ultra-luxurious estates had been bought, but there were quite a few walled estates on the market, enough to allow them to basicly take their pick.

        Jason mentioned the house search to Dahnai at court the next day.  She scoffed and gave him a dirty look, and told him she’d take care of it.  He had no idea what she intended to take care of, since she ended court immediately after that and also told him to go home, that she had something to do.

        That made him nervous.

        By the time Jason returned from Draconis a few hours after court, waiting for Anya to deal with some Suralle business, Dahnai had already acted.  Anya’s shuttle was diverted, and landed at a large walled estate on Cape Cod, in Massechussets, that overlooked the ocean.  Waiting for them there was a member of Merrane, who handed him a set of keys.  “Her Majesty owns this planet, your Grace, and all unclaimed or destitute property is, by law, property of the Crown, which she can sell on the open market.  This is one such property.  She told me to tell you that this is your house now, but it’s also not free.  She expects you to pay her fifty thousand credits for this property.”

Fifty thousand?  It’s worth five hundred thousand, at least.  Maybe a million, Anya scoffed.

        “It’d take me a week just to dust something this big,” Jason said uncertainly.  “It’s too big for me and Jys.  I’d be spending my whole life just cleaning.”

        “Jason.  You are the Grand Duke Karinne.  You do not clean,” Anya said, scandalized by the thought of it.

        “I wasn’t born a noble, I don’t think like you do, Anya.”

Well, get over it, she sniffed.  And you’d be a maniac for turning this down.  Not only is it perfect for you, but you’d really offend her Majesty.  One does not turn down a gift from her.

        She’s charging me, Anya.  That means this isn’t a gift.

        Charging you one tenth of its value?  Yeah, she is, Anya snorted.

        That about settled that.  Jason accepted the terms, reluctantly, and found himself in possession of an estate, ironically enough, named Foxwood.  And it was rather nice, almost perfect.  It had a pool and a tennis court on the grounds, a cavernous garage with lined spots for twenty cars, and a stone wall fenced in nearly 30 acres that isolated the mansion from the road.  It had a large fifty room mansion with all the amenities one would expect from a place like this, already furnished, and what was most important, it had a concrete slab out behind the house that was originally a helicopter landing pad, but would serve him well as landing spot for his skimmer and Nova.

        Jyslin loved it, but Jason, well, he felt it was too big.  He felt lost in the place, it was so damn big, and it didn’t feel cozy.  It didn’t feel like home.  But, he guessed, he’d be expected to live in a place like this, and all the spare bedrooms would certainly be useful.  He left Jyslin to deal with the other issues, like hiring a staff to man the place, because he had to go back to court the next day.

        It was during the training session after court that Dahnai broached the subject.  “So, what did you think of the house?” she asked.

        “It’s too big,” he answered immediately.  “Raise your right hand more.  Good.”

        “It’s befitting a Grand Duke.”

        “I’ll be sure to tell the Grand Duke the next time I see him,” he said dryly.  “But Jason doesn’t like it quite that much.  It may be a house, but it doesn’t feel like home, you know?”

        “I can understand that.  Look where I live, after all, the most ostentatious, gaudy building on Draconis.  Just do what I do, hon, pick the part of the place you like the best and make it your home. The rest of the place can just be the window dressing for the visitors.”

        “That’s not a bad idea.”

        “Of course it’s not.  I suggested it.”

        “My, that title certainly makes you think you know everything, doesn’t it?”

        She gave him a look, then laughed.  Then she got her butt thrown to the ground because she wasn’t paying attention.

        But it was a good idea.  Jason and Jyslin selected a series of three connected rooms in the north wing, and declared it to be their apartment.  They tossed out all the furniture, refurnished it, redecorated it, converted one room into a living room, one into an office and study for Jason, and the other into a bedroom, and moved in.  Tim and Symone couldn’t find anything available near the estate, so Jason and Jyslin just solved that problem by moving them into the manor.  Tim didn’t want to live in the manor house, so they instead moved into a guest house on the other side of the pool.  After taking a look at the six room house, Jason was kicking himself that he didn’t think of moving in there first.  The cozy little house would have been perfect.

        They weren’t alone long, that was for sure. Miaari and Kiaari almost had a cow when they saw the place, and saw that Jason and Jyslin were living in the cavernous manor alone, since Jyslin hadn’t started hiring a staff and Jason had been too busy fussing with the apartment to think about things.  Miaari placed a call to Zaa, Zaa called Dahnai, and Dahnai got on the gravband almost immediately to the Marines.  Dahnai had no idea that Jason had moved in without telling anyone, without hiring a staff, without even bringing any security for crying out loud, and she was angry with him over it.  She moved swiftly to deploy a Marine detachment to the manor, and they quickly secured the place.  The detachment commander, a bulldog-jawed Faey Major, Major Zhara Ulinne, was both efficient and discreet, posting guards all through the grounds and in the house itself, but making sure they were never ostentatious.  Kiaari almost scornfully took over from Jyslin the task of finding and hiring a staff to man the house, telling her a Kimdori was best suited to dealing with matters of security…and the workers that would be caring for the private residence of the Grand Duke Karinne was most certainly a matter of security.  Kiaari was both fast and effective.  Jason had to go to court again, but when he got back early in the morning of the next day, Kiaari had a full staff of maids, cooks, butlers, maintenance personnel, and groundskeepers already hired.  And she was training them personally.  It seemed that she and Zhara had got together and worked out a security plan for the manor, and Kiaari was training these new workers in their duties as the private house staff of the Grand Duke Karinne.

        “Uh, Kiaari, why are you still here, anyway?” he asked as she came into their apartment one early afternoon as Jyslin helped him dress in the formal robes for court.  “Shouldn’t you have gone home by now?  We’re done with what you came here to do, after all.”

        “You still need me, Jason.  You hired me to help you, and just because you’re the Grand Duke now, you still need me.  If I’m not here to help keep you alive, who’s going to?  Don’t ever think that Trillane has forgotten about you, my friend.  They haven’t.  They’ll eventually try to get revenge on you for what you did to them.  Major Zhara and the Marines are here to handle the obvious threats and to keep the riffraff out of your hair and let you have some peace and quiet.  Well, I’m here to handle the not-so-obvious threats.  Kimdori know how to play the game, hon, and that includes playing defense.  No assassin is going to sneak into this manor and threaten you or Jyslin so long as I’m here keeping watch over it.  And now that we have a permanent place, I can set up a more effective intelligence operation, and bring in some of my people to help me,” she said, rubbing her furry hands together.  “Miaari may be your ambassador to my people, but I’m still your intelligence chief,” she winked.

        “I can’t afford that kind of an operation,” he warned.

        “Who said you were paying for it?  The Kimdori have always performed this service for the Karinnes, Jayce.  It’s tradition, and you know how Kimdori are about tradition.  I’m just lucky that sister Handmaiden talked Denmother into giving me this assignment.  It’s a real chance to prove myself.  I get to run the operation, not be part of it.  For someone as young as me, it’s really rare.  If I do a good job, I’ll bring even more prestige to the clan.  Why, our father would almost burst from pride if he had a Handmaiden for a daughter and the youngest gamekeeper among the Kimdori for another daughter.”

        “Gamekeeper?”

        “It’s all nothing but a game, after all,” she winked.  “The Gamekeeper controls the game.  And Terra will be my playing field.  I am the Gamekeeper of Terra.  This planet’s intelligence is my responsibility.”

        “And Miaari’s gonna be there looking over your shoulder,” Jason realized.

        Kiaari winced and gave him a hard look.  “You just had to remind me,” she growled.  “Of course she’s gonna be looking over my shoulder.”

        “Look at it as always having someone around to give you advice when you need it,” Jyslin told her.

        “And someone to harp on me when she thinks I’m not doing things the way she wants them,” she added.

        “That woulda happened no matter what,” Jyslin chuckled.

        The manor house was entirely too big, but at least it filled up quickly.  Jason brought in the rest of the house and gave them a permanent place to stay while they found homes of their own.  Everyone had a room, and for a while, the place was lively and felt like home.  But one by one, the ex-Marines and the former members of the Legion found houses, and moved out.  But, thankfully, they all decided to live very close to Foxwood, so everyone found houses in Massechussets, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, a quick and easy commute to both Foxwood and New York, which made the Marines Dahnai sent to Earth very happy, since it put all the Karinnes in the same region, a region that they really saturated with troops to keep things safe and orderly.  And they didn’t have to pay for them, either.  Jason bought them their houses, using old leftover Legion funds, making sure they had a good head start.

        Not everyone decided to go that route, though.  Myleena decided that the action would be at Foxwood, so she went the same route as Tim and Symone and claimed the second guest lodging on the estate, which was a studio apartment over the garage originally meant for the estate mechanic.  It also kept her right there on hand to tinker with the two Novas, both the one Jason had nearly trashed, which the Kimdori had repaired, and the spare one.  The Karinne dropship was also brought to Foxwood for safe keeping, and Myleena—and Jason for that matter, when he had time—was quite content to putter around on the ships at hand when she wasn’t studying the Scimitar.  In reality, Jason and Kiaari both preferred it if Myleena lived on the grounds.  Given she was the only other Generation in the house, Kiaari wanted to keep them both under her watchful eye.

        But, it made it more like home to him.  Myleena was an interesting young woman, and he both liked her for who she was and admired her for her technical expertise.  He liked learning from her, tearing things apart with her, and he just liked her.  Having her nearby to basicly chew the fat when he needed a distraction was a good thing.

        And then there were Tim and Symone.  They lived on the grounds, and they probably spent more time in Jason’s apartment than they did in their own home…but that was the way all of them wanted it.  Tim and Symone were his best friends, and Symone was almost like a second wife to him, not just someone to share a bed with when they were both in the mood, but someone to whom he felt he could talk on a level reserved for someone very special in his life, someone he trusted just as much as he trusted Jyslin and Tim.  She knew less about the truth than Jyslin, but she never pushed to know more, and was content in what he was willing to divulge.  But what made what existed between them go to another level was that they didn’t just share when the other spouse wasn’t available anymore.  It was broken the night he admitted to Jyslin that he’d been wanting to make love with Symone again, despite the fact that Jyslin was there.  Jyslin just laughed and summoned Symone to their apartment that very second, and sent them into the bedroom so Jason could explore his awakening desires for Symone.  Then she went to go find Tim.

        It was probably the last barrier that had been broken in him, and had allowed him to fully embrace the relationships he had with these two Faey women.  Jyslin was the love of his life, and the woman he wanted to spend his life with, but Symone, well, Symone was a fun, entertaining woman who had squirmed her way into his libido if nothing else, and he found sex with her to be both different from sex with Jyslin and also exciting and fulfilling in its own ways.  It was what Jyslin considered to be a thoroughly natural Faey response, two friends who had the hots for each other exploring that attraction, but in a way that didn’t threaten either of their marriages.  Jyslin felt the same way about Tim, finding him to be a really sexy man and a thoroughly satisfying and vigorous lover (the second best lover on Earth, Jysin had told Jason), and the four of them formed what in Faey terms was called the amu dozei, the harmonious love, a term closely related to the amu donai, the courtly love, where a single spouse shared a deep “platonic” love affair with someone outside the marriage that did not involve the spouse.  What existed between the four of them involved both pairs of spouses, a combination of friendship and mutual sexual attraction that brought them together as more than just two sets of married friends.

        And it sure as hell was no secret.  The Faey considered such arrangements to be entirely proper, even practical, but the humans Jason governed, who were just as curious about their Grand Duke as the rest of the Imperium were, well, it took them a little while to wrap their minds around the idea of him having a mistress, who happened to be a married woman, and to whom neither his wife or her husband didn’t object.  There was the certain “scandal” when it came out that Jason was cheating on his wife with the wife of his best friend, but Jason didn’t address it, knowing it would just fade as soon as Jyslin was asked about it.  And boy, did it fade fast.  When a CNN reporter threw that question at the pair when they were attending a formal dinner with the delegates of the U.N., trying to startle a juicy response out of the Duchess, Jyslin just laughed and loudly shouted back that he’d damn well better be screwing Symone on the side, seeing as how Jyslin had worked so hard to set it up, and how she was screwing her husband at the same time.

        That shocked the reporter into absolute silence.  And that was probably the moment when the people of Earth learned a valuable lesson:  never try to embarrass a Faey woman on live national television, for she will destroy you.

        It even reached all the way back to Draconis.  Two days after that dinner, Dahnai decided she wanted to have her training out on the grounds, since it was such a pretty day.  In reality, she did it only because of the sunlight.  She knew that the Draconian sun caused his skin to turn blue, and she was taking almost devilish delight in trying to accelerate that process as much as she possibly could.  Any time he was at court and it was both warm and sunny outside, Dahnai demanded outdoor exercise, had even taken court outside to the lawn on three occassions.

        It was a pretty day, he had to admit.  The air was sweet and warm, but not hot, and that damned sun shone down on them with invigorating energy.  She knew he couldn’t shield himself from the sun and train her at the same time.  She was wearing what Jason would call a spandex training suit, a skin-tight pair of thigh-length shorts and a bra-like haltar, both glossy black, while Jason wore a traditional Aikido gi, with the loose shirt and flared, pleated leggings, whose baggy, flowing volume would deceive the eye and hide his motions from her senses.  The back of his gi showed the crest of Karinne, but had also been altered with the Legion Phoenix rising from between the two waves, under the single star.  Luke had doodled the design a couple of weeks ago, and Jason liked it so much he was having a new signet ring made with the design, and had it embroidered on the back of his training gi.  When that ring was complete, he’d present it and a new banner to Dahnai, informing her that the House of Karinne was adopting a new crest.

        “You’re looking a bit dusty, old man,” she teased as they reached the sand-covered training field, where the Imperial Guards practiced hand to hand combat.  There were guards in attendance that day, as there usually was when he trained, ten guards wearing tank tops and workout shorts, standing in a wide ring around the Empress and her mentor.  The guards were officially defending the Imperial person, but unofficially, they were watching Jason and learning.  His non-lethal martial techniques that would immobilize a foe without killing were of great interest to the guards, for they could perform those movements while in armor.  Jason didn’t mind their observation, and had even been approached by the Captain of the Guard, a middle-aged woman with her blond hair done in a crew cut, about who she could contact on Terra to find someone that could teach her guards some of what Jason knew, since Jason didn’t have time to be training the guards himself.  He was happy to give her some names of several respected sensei, any of which would probably be happy to move to Draconis to become a tutor.

        “You do this on purpose, don’t you?” he accused as he put his hands together.  She mirrored him, and they bowed in respect to one another.  Dahnai had been scandalized when he demanded this, and it almost got him executed when the Siann learned that he was demanding the Empress bow to him, but he had been absolutely adamant.  She was not bowing to him as a subjugant in political power, she was bowing to him as her teacher, and it was a tradition so deeply ingrained into both Jason and the art that he flatly refused to teach her a damn thing without the bow.  She was paying her respects not to him, but to the art, and she’d better damn well respect it.  If she had no respect for the knowledge he was willing to impart upon her, he would not teach her.

        “Of course I do,” she winked.  “I think you’d be devastatingly handsome with blue skin.  It’s the only part of you that I’d care to change.  And since I can change it, well, here we are.”

        “Bitch.”

        “Bet on it,” she teased.  “What are we doing first?”

        “You realize that I look utterly ridiculous at home,” he pressed.  “Only my face and hands are turning blue.  Look!”  He pulled his sleeve up, showing a rough boundary between his bluish-tinged skin and his beige skin.  “It makes me look like I’m diseased!”

        “Well, if you don’t want a two-tone color scheme, I suggest you take off your shirt so you can tan out to a uniform color,” she winked.

        “Sometimes I hate you, Dahnai.”

        “Then I’m doing my job as your Empress,” she teased.  “Are we practicing forms, or are you teaching me something new?”

        “Forms, of course.”

        They practiced the base forms with flowing grace, as the Imperial guards watched on, as well as quite a few of the Siann, watching from windows in the palace behind them.  “I saw an interesting little blurb on INN this morning,” Dahnai noted as the turned with grace, sweeping the right arm out wide.  “I didn’t know you had an amu dozei.”

        “Symone,” he answered, taking a single step forward.  “She’s married to my best friend, and she’s my wife’s best friend.”

        “The human telepath?”

        “Yah.”

        “I’m surprised you got into that kind of a relationship.  You seem to resist your Faey heritage and embrace your human one.”

        “It’s hard to resist Symone,” he said dryly.

        “How does your friend see it?”

        “Same as I do.  He’s much more adapted to Faey customs than me,” he answered honestly.  “I had trouble with it at first, when Symone and Tim came to live with me, and I was separated from Jyslin.  Symone wanted to fill Jyslin’s shoes while we were apart.”

        “An entirely proper thing,” Dahnai noted.

        “That’s how she saw it,” Jason agreed.  “I didn’t see it quite that way, at first.  It took Symone time to wear me down, but I guess over time, it wore me down far enough.  I like Symone.  She’s fun, she’s funny, and she’s a great person to be around.  When I admitted to Jyslin I’d been having fantasies about her, but wouldn’t do anything about it because, you know, Jyslin was home, she just laughed and sent Symone to me.  Ever since then, whenever I feel like sleeping with Symone, or she wants to sleep with me, we do, and whenever Tim and Jyslin wanna do it, they do.  It’s been kinda fun, really.”

        “So, you can bend that towering human morality with enough motivation,” Dahnai chuckled.

        “More like with the right people,” he corrected her.  “I think I’d be jealous if my wife were sleeping with anyone other than Tim.  I understand their relationship.  I know that they knew where the line is, and Jyslin knows that me and Symone are the same way.”

        “Well,” she said as they finished the first exercise.  “That makes sense.  You have to bring Symone and Tim to court some day.  I’d like to meet them.”

        “Bringing Symone to court would be a bad idea,” he said immediately. “If she didn’t mortally offend some Grand Duchess, she’d have them all dancing in a congo line.”

        Dahnai laughed.  “I have no idea what that is, but it sounds…interesting.”

        “Symone’s a unique girl, with a lot of natural charisma and a happy-go-lucky attitude that makes people relax around her.  It’s part of what attracts me to her.  And I’d never be insane enough to bring her here.  Symone would not gel with the Siann.  They take themselves way too seriously to be ready for Symone.”

        “Now I really have to meet her,” Dahnai laughed.  “Sounds like my kinda person.”

        “She wouldn’t be afraid of you at all, Empress,” he warned.

        “That’s why I want to meet her.”

        He practiced with her through what he’d taught her, then taught her new techniques of locking an arm of an adversary.  “Always remember that the momentum of your enemy can be your ally, if you use it correctly,” he instructed.  “An arm in motion will remain in motion.  That’s energy your opponent has expended that he can’t change without effort.  You use that against him.  Attack me,” he instructed.

        She did so.  He never told her how to attack, or what to try.  He always allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do, which really annoyed her.  She really tried to hit him or knock him down, but he never failed to conquer her attempt and put her into whatever lock, hold, or throw he intended to teach her.  It was the way he was taught, and it was the way he taught her.  She hovered back a moment, her feet tamping, and then she lunged forward with an open hand, trying to grab him and perform the armlock he taught her last week.  He intercepted her and twisted her around, then snapped her arm straight out and bent her wrist, which sent her to one knee in a hiss of pain.  “This is the straight arm wristlock,” he instructed, applying more pressure, which made her gasp. “With this hold, you incapacitate your foe by forcing them break their own wrist or dislocating their own shoulder to return to the vertical base.  With a little nudging,” he said, torquing her arm, which literally put her on the ground to avoid either a broken wrist or a dislocated shoulder, “you can take someone off her feet.  This hold is about leverage, Dahnai.  If you can’t gain the leverage on your opponent’s wrist with the initial hold, it can be safely broken.”

        “I see, if you didn’t hold my arm the right way, I coulda bent my elbow and got inside.”

        “Exactly,” he said, letting go.  “Always remember to bend the wrist away from the elbow, and get the foe’s arm straight with a good snap before you apply the hold.  If you bend into the elbow or try to apply the force on a bent arm, your foe can just curl in the arm and retaliate.”  She regained her feet, and he stepped up and waved in a guard.  The guard would be their practice partner, someone Jason could use as basicly a practice dummy to demonstrate the moves where Dahnai could see it from the outside.  This guard was one he’d never met before, a tall, willowy woman with dark green hair tied back in a ponytail, just like Dahnai’s bronze hair was, wearing a Marine tank top undershirt and a pair of workout shorts.  Just like Jason and Dahnai, she was barefoot.  He put the guard in the lock, showing Dahnai the form without appying any force, explaining it in more detail.  “And always remember the basic focus of the art, Dahnai.”

        “Flowing movements that complement the momentum of the enemy, using it against her,” she recited.

        “Exactly.  Just like any hold, it can be broken if your foe moves the right way.  Understand this, move with your foe, keep your leverage.  Thank you,” he told the guard.

My pleasure, she sent in reply, bowing to them both and stepping back to the outside.

        Jason let Dahnai practice the lock on him for the next hour, letting her learn the nuances of the hold and the necessary ways to move to maintain it, for he broke the hold on her several times to show her how it could be done.  When their time was up, Jason and Dahnai bowed to each other, and she caught a towel a guard threw to her.  “Nice workout.  What’s on your schedule tomorrow?”

        “I’m meeting with the president of Russia tomorrow,” he answered as he took a drink from a water bottle.  “Er, well, in about nine hours,” he corrected, looking at his watch.  “This time difference is driving me nuts.  Dracora time is ten hours ahead of local time for me now.  It’ll nearly be dawn by the time I get home.  It makes me tired.”

        “I can relate, believe me,” she grunted.  “Want a room?  You can take a nap and then just go straight to your appointment.”

        “Nah, Anya’s going back to Earth, and I’m catching a ride with her.  Besides, they’re expecting me back home.  Jyslin worries when I don’t come home when I say I will.”

        “You sure?”

        “I’m sure.”

        He and Anya rode a Suralle shuttle up to a large personal ship, Anya’s personal yacht, that then started out for the stargate.  But it didn’t reach it without incident.  Klaxons started blaring in the passenger cabin, where he, Anya, and two of her aides were seated in what looked like a living room, albeit a small, cozy one, and the windows sealed over with armored plates.  “What’s going on?” Jason asked in surprise.

Strap in, your Graces, we’re under attack! came a frenzied sending from the bridge.  Fearfully, Jason helped Anya to one of the foldaway chairs attached to the bulkhead and strapped her in, but then he was thrown to the deck with her aides when the entire ship rocked violently, sending him flying.  They were being fired on!  Anya’s yacht had been hit!

        It was a terrible feeling, being helpless like that.  Jason was a passenger here, and all he could do was climb into a seat beside Anya after helping Anya’s young aides strap in, wait, and worry.  He could feel the ship lurch this way and that, as the pilots of the yacht executed evasive maneuvers, and felt the ship shake when it was hit.  The klaxons continued to blare, and Jason could hear the roar of rushing air behind the door to Anya’s compartment, telling him the hull had been compromised and the yacht was venting atmosphere into space.  A second, heavier door came down over the first one, a bulkhead door to isolate their compartment from the hull breach.

Where is the Navy? Anya sent in fear. Why aren’t they helping us?

        We were far out from the planet, halfway between the planet and the stargate, it’s gonna take them a couple of minutes to get here, Jason answered.  I just hope your pilots are good enough to keep us alive until they get here.

        I hope so too, she sent in fear, grabbing Jason’s hand in a crushing grip.

[Contact.  KMS Defiant mainframe. Establishing link.]

        What the fuck?  His gestalt wouldn’t be establishing that kind of link unless the Defiant—

Holy Trelle! the pilot sent.  What the hell kind of ship is that?

        What’s going on? Jason sent.

A cruiser just jumped in out of nowhere, it’s getting between us and the cargo ship firing at us!  It’s shielding us from enemy fire!  The pilot sent an image of what she was seeing, and Jason gasped in surprise.

        It was the Defiant!

        Through the pilot’s eyes, he saw what happened next.  The cargo ship tried to come in underneath the battle cruiser, and then a sustained streak of angry white light erupted from the port wing of the cruiser, raking across the blocky cargo ship. The beam sliced it in half like paper, shearing through the hull, which caused the ship’s atmosphere to explosively decompress, pushing the two halves apart.  Plasma vented aggressively into space, and then the stern half of the dead ship exploded violently of its own volition, sending the bow section spinning off into space.  Who was manning that warship?

[Are you alright, Jason?] a voice came, relayed to him by communion with the gestalt

        He gasped.  It was Miaari!  She was using the Defiant’s mainframe to communicate with him by communion!

[Miaari?  What the hell is going on?]

        [I’m aboard the Defiant.  When our scanners detected the attack, Jinaami warned Denmother, and she sent us.  I was on board, overseeing while my people ran a shakedown cruise to make sure it’s operational, when she ordered the Defiant to immediately jump out and assist.  Are you okay?]

        [We’re fine now. Thanks for the help.]

        [Your ship has been hit.  Is it in danger?]

        [It seems alright.  The hull was breached, but we seem to be alright.  The pilots aren’t telling us to use the escape pods.]

        [Naval ships are coming.  We’ll let them assist you, my friend.  We’ll jump back out and let them wonder just what happened and who we are.  Faey love mysteries, so we may as well give them one they’ll never solve.]

        [Miaari, that’s mean,] Jason had to tell her with an audible chuckle.

        Two things happened after that.

        First, the mystery of the Defiant swept through the Imperium like wildfire.  Nobody had ever seen a ship of that design before, and it was an absolute mystery where it had come from and where it had gone.  Video of it firing on the cargo ship was analyzed eight ways to Sunday by both the government and the media, showing the Imperium a weapon that they’d never seen before, some kind of cutting beam so powerful it sliced through the hull of the cargo ship like a hot knife through butter.  The video angles they had at first only showed the strike on the cargo ship and then the ship jumping out almost immediately after the ship was destroyed, but later, the media got their hands on surveillance video showing the cargo ship attacking a Suralle personal yacht with almost reckless disregard, in plain view of the entire planet.  It was such a maniacal thing to do!  It showed the Suralle yacht being hit, and then the mysterious triangular warship jumps in like an avenging angel, destroys the ship attacking the Suralle yacht, and then jumps out, almost like a ghost.

        That was the public reaction.  The reaction in the Siann was much more reflexive.  They all knew that someone had ordered that attack, had tried to kill either Anya Suralle or Jason Karinne, but the sheer nerve of it, to attack in the open at the home planet…that took some balls.  Nobody knew who did it, because the destruction of the independent cargo ship, privately owned, had killed the crew and destroyed the computer.  They searched the remains of the bow section, but found no evidence of who had hired the ship to try to kill members of the Siann.  That made them all nervous, unsure if they were talking to someone who had just done something one just did not do out in the open.

        The second thing that happened was that Dahnai was utterly pissed.  She had a much more thorough education in history, and had recognized the triangular design of the mystery warship that had saved the Suralle yacht immediately.  The Defiant was simply a much larger version of the Scimitar with a flatter bow and narrower stern, and Dahnai had not missed that comparison.  She called Jason back to Draconis before he even got back to Earth, making them change ships and turn around and come back, and she grilled him in her private quarters.  She knew that ship was a Karinne ship, and it had shown up to defend him from attack.  She was through playing games.  She wanted the truth, and she wanted it fucking now.

        This was not the light probing and entertaining game that Dahnai usually made of it.  This was the Empress of the Imperium making adamant demands of one of her subjects, but Jason stood silent.  He would not answer her.  He would not betray his word.  He stood in silent vigil for nearly three hours, eyes forward and unmoving as she yelled at him, threatened him, waved an order to yank Karinne’s charter in his face awaiting her signature, even summoned a mindbender to stand at the door, waiting for her order to drag him out to be interrogated, but he would not move from his position, nor would he even give Dahnai the tiny victory of saying a single word.

        In the end, he wore her out.  She leaned back on her desk and crossed her arms under her breasts, giving him an ugly look.  “Look at me,” she demanded.  He had been standing there with his eyes forward the entire time, and when he refused, she bent to him by marching into his field of vision.  He felt her mind brush against his, but she found nothing but emptiness when she tried to look inside him.  He had been using the same trick he had used against Jyslin so long ago, entering a meditative state that suspended all outward thought, giving him the same sense of telepathic presence as a toaster.  “I know that was your ship, Jason,” she told him flatly.  “You salvaged more than just your Scimitar.  And you are going to answer me.  You’re going to tell me what you know of the Karinnes, and you’re going to bring that ship out and let me board it and look at it.  It may not be today, but you will.  That’s a promise.  If you thought I was bad before, honey, that was just play.  I was amusing myself.  But now it’s not a game anymore.  The Shovalle Empresses that sat on this throne before me always ignored the Karinnes, had let them play their games on their own, as long as they kept doing their research and feeding new ideas and new technology to the Imperium.  They knew the Karinnes weren’t releasing everything, and that was one reason why they were destroyed. When war was declared, the first thing the Shovalles did was order the immediate and total destruction of Karis, even going so far as to leave their own territory undefended to muster a battle fleet big enough to do it.  If Merrane hadn’t have gotten there first, the Shovalles would have been the ones to destroy Karis.  But the Merranes did it because they couldn’t afford to let the Karinnes side with the Shovalles.  Even then we knew that the Karinnes were much more dangerous than they pretended to be.  We knew that whichever side they took was going to win the war because that side would have the Karinne telepaths and the Karinne technology, so they had to either be brought over or destroyed.  If they weren’t going to side with the Seditionists, they were too dangerous to be allowed to survive.  If you read history, you know that the first thing that happened at Karis was the destruction of the planet.  After that, when the Shovalles showed up, the largest naval battle in Faey history that took place over the planet.  Both sides had brought huge fleets to destroy the Karinnes, and they met head to head right there.  That battle actually decided the war, because it seriously crippled the Loyalist fleet.  The Loyalists won the battle, but they lost too many ships, and in the long run it cost them the war.

        “I’m not going to make the same mistake my predecessors made, Jason.  I’m not going to just smile and look away as the new house of Karinne picks up where the old one left off, and plays its own little games.  The Karinnes will either be a part of the Imperium, or they will not be a part of the Imperium,” she said with intensity.

        Jason looked at her. “The Imperium isn’t ready for the Karinnes to be part of it,” he told her evenly, in a low tone.  “When the Karinnes can trust the Imperium, then the Karinnes will be a part of it.  If I handed that ship over to you, what would you do with it?  You’d take it apart, learn how it works, and build more of them.  Then you’d use them to make war on anyone and everyone around you.  The Karinnes vowed to never allow that to happen, and I am a Karinne.  They withheld their true technology from the Imperium because the Imperium would have done nothing with it but make war.  I will honor the sacred traditions of my ancestors, because I agree with them completely.  The truth is, Empress, you aren’t ready for what I know.  Faey are violent and aggressive, and though I love the Faey people very much, I detest their negative aspects.  You have so much technology, so much culture, so much advancement, and all you do is make war, even on each other.  I’m not going to indulge the worst parts of the Faey, Dahnai.  I’m not going to help you become better killers.  We will not give you new tools to use to make war on others and each other.  Until then, until the Faey evolve past their need to conquer and dominate everyone around them, the Karinnes will never be a willing part of your system.  Remember that, Dahnai.  If you can’t accept that, then you’d better kill me right here, right now, because I would rather die than betray the duties I accepted when I took the title of Grand Duke Karinne, duties to more than just you.”

        She was silent, for a long time, just looking at him, her fingers tousling her long bronze hair around and around and around her fingers.  Then she sighed.  “Go home, Jason,” she ordered. “Just go home.  And don’t come back until I summon you.”

        Jason nodded and walked to the door.  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he told her over his shoulder.  “I only wanted to be your friend, and I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

        “I’m sure you mean that,” she answered.

        That really depressed Jason.  He liked Dahnai, he liked her a lot.  It had hurt him to tell her that, had been forced to tell her the truth, but he’d had no choice.  If  he didn’t tell her why he wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, she would never stop.  But at least now she understood his position.  She knew he took his word very seriously, and that he was dead serious that he would take those secrets to the grave with him.

        It didn’t stop her from trying someone else, though.  She summoned Myleena to Draconis, alone, and Jason paced the entire time she was gone.  She returned almost two days later, pale and shaking, and she clung to Jason for almost an hour after returning.  She told him that Dahnai interrogated her personally, trying to force her to reveal what she knew of Karinne technology, but Myleena refused.  Dahnai hadn’t used mindbenders, she had only used her own authority, trying to make Myleena obey her Empress.  “It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life,” she said weakly from Jason’s arms, after crying herself out.  “Since I was a little girl, I was trained to obey my Empress, and there she was, in the flesh, asking me questions I knew I couldn’t answer.  It was a nightmare!  I almost had a nervous breakdown. That’s when she finally showed me some mercy and let me come home.  Oh, Jason!  I was so scared!” she said, then she started crying all over again.

        Jason expected some kind or Imperial retaliation for Karinne’s defiance, like taking Foxwood from him or recalling the Marines, but nothing like that materialized.  Jason was banished from the Siann for now, no longer in the Empress’ favor, and it gave him time to quietly reflect on how hard it was going to be to be the gatekeeper of the secrets of the Karinnes from a woman so hell-bent on breaking that gate down and taking what was inside.  He realized that it might even cost him his life.

        So be it.  He meant it.  He would take those secrets to his grave.  He would never turn them over to Dahnai.  Never.

        He buried himself in other matters for a few weeks, riding shotgun as the United Nations finally seated its delegates then opened for business as the Earth’s governmental entity.  Jason introduced the Terran Charter to the legislative body, the consitution of Earth that was basicly patterned after the American constitution, and it was passed.  Each country then had to ratify it; once three quarters of them ratified the charter, it would become the law of the land.  It established two separate parliamentary houses, and the Secretary General would act as the main executive, but with Jason over him as the Grand Duke Karinne, who could overrule the Secretary General and act with the same executive power if necessary.  The Secretary General would be like a Prime Minister, with Jason being the royal figure above him, like the British system.  But unlike the British system, Jason’s position was not ceremonial.  He held real power.

        The ratification took about two weeks.  And it passed.

        And so, the United Nations then reorganized itself.  Selected delegates would sit on the Security Council, like the Senate, while elected officials would serve in the General Council, which was like the House of Representatives.  The World Court was installed as the judiciary in planetary matters, and the Secretary General was installed as the direct executive, with Jason sitting as the ultimate executive, holding the same title of Grand Duke in the charter as he did in the Imperium.  The United Nations took over the responsibilities of diplomacy, defense, and the oversight of the farming effort on their side, working closely with the Suralles to ensure that food was produced at the required quotas.  The new Farm Worker Act was passed that limited the amount of time a single person could work on a farm, paid them for their work using the portion of the profits that went to Earth from the farming, putting all that money back into the farming effort, and instituted mandatory classes in agriculture for every child and working-age adult on Earth.  Everyone, from the richest to the poorest, would learn about the farming business, so they’d have an understanding of what they’d be doing when their turn came up to serve on a farm.

        The new system was quite satisfactory, to both the Terrans and to the Suralles, because it protected the productivity of the planet while boosting the morale of the people that would be doing the work.  The law made a farmer an important, prestigious occupation, and an occupation that may be hard work, was also a certain path to prosperity with its high financial returns for the effort given.  It made everyone happy.

        Jason was quite happy himself, because now that Kim Duk Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, was in place and on the job, Jason could take a break and relax a while.  Kim could just call him and send over anything he wanted him to read.  And since he was exiled from Draconis, which let his skin return to normal without exposure to the Draconian sun, he really didn’t have that much to do for a while.

        So, he snuck out in the middle of the night, and visited Karis.  He had a good visit with Cybi, caught up with the Kimdori on their repairs, which were almost complete, and saw that the floral reclamation project that Cybi had started on the island was already taking root on the small continent of Benja, where the old capitol of Karsa was at.  The capitol was already 40% rebuilt, and all sixteen of the reclamation robots were on Benja, planting grass and trees to restart the ecosystem.  They’d already carpeted nearly a quarter of the small continent with green, and Cybi projected that the continent would be revitalized in 1.3 years.

        They’d really done a good job.  All three of the warships were now fully operational, and since there were no Karinnes to man them, Zaa had commanded that Kimdori would man those ships, and keep them on constant standby.  The attack on Jason, which the Kimdori admitted they couldn’t track back to the house that ordered it, had spooked the Denmother, and she ordered those warships ready to jump out of the system at a moment’s notice to defend the Grand Duke Karinne if he was attacked again.

        He returned home to Foxwood to find a sashed member of the Empress’ personal staff waiting for him, sitting sedately in a chair in a receiving room, chatting with one of the maids who had brought her a cup of tea.  She stood up when Jason came into the room, bowed to him, and gave im a small, rather elaborately carved wooden box.  She then bowed to him again and waited for him to open it.

        He did so.

        What was inside made him drop the box like it was a live snake and back away from it.  He put his hand over his heart as he tried to remember how to breathe, staring at the object that was inside, almost expecting it to jump up and attack him.

        “Are you alright, your Grace?” the maid, Patty, asked.

        The emissary said nothing.  She just bowed her head and looked, then she shook her head and sighed.

        Within the box was a single white flower, looking like a small rose.  It was a mey, a rare flower, and its significance was not lost on Jason.  It was an ancient tradition, practiced by the Empress and the Highborn Grand Duchesses.

        By sending him that flower, Empress Dahnai was informing him that she was taking his hand in marriage.

        He didn’t bother changing out of the work clothes he was in.  He didn’t call for a skimmer or yacht to come get him.  He jumped in a Nova and took off, and he flew at breakneck speeds into space, past the moon, through the gate, and down to the Imperial Palace.  He had no clearance to land, and that nearly got him blown out of the sky.  He stalked past everyone, even pushed guards out of his way, until he was standing in front of Dahnai’s door to her quarters.  It opened before he could knock, and he found himself staring at her, wearing one of her thigh-length robes, splayed across her couch watching the vidlink.  “Have you lost your fucking mind?!” he demanded in a thunderous shout.  “Are you insane?  You have to be insane, Dahnai!  What hair got up your ass to do that!”

        She gave him a slow look. “Come in.  Shut the door,” she said, then she looked at one of the guards. “Leave us.  Now,” she ordered in a tone that would brook none of the usual objections when she ordered the guards out of a position to protect her, especially right now, when Jason looked of half a mind to charge across the room and strangle her.  The three guards filed past Jason and out the door, and the two guards who had been flanking it closed it, but not without worried looks into the room.

        “Sit down,” she told him, waggling a foot at the chair facing her couch.

        “Answer me, girl,” Jason said hotly.  “Are you nuts?  Do you have any idea how much trouble both of us are going to get into if people find out what you did?”

        “I gave it a lot of serious thought, Jason,” she told him evenly.  “And I told you to sit.”

        He blew out his breath, then decided to obey.  She was being very calm, very rational.  Clearly, she had a reason for this insanity, and he wanted to hear it.  So he sat down.  “Tea?”

        “Skip the pleasantries and get to the point,” he demanded.

        “Alright, the point.  The point, Jason, is the very trouble that will start because of it.  You think I don’t know how the Siann will react when they find out I’m engaged to a Terran?  They’ll have a conniption.  There’s gonna be angry shouting, protests that I’m disgracing the throne, sneers that I’m introducing the wrong blood into the royal line, the whole pod of chaba nuts.  And that’s the point, Jason.  Who I marry shouldn’t matter, but it does.  It’s probably going to start a war,” she admitted evenly.  “The Shovalles and Dorranes will use it as a pretext to try to take the throne.  Hell, even the Trillanes might take a shot at it, Maeri will say that I’ve gone insane and she didn’t deserve the punishment I laid down on her.

        “Clearly, I’m dragging you right into the middle of  it.  You’re the perfect catalyst, the handsome alien that sweeps in to steal a noble house, then woos the young Empress and makes her so smitten that she risks war to take his hand in marriage.  Quite the story, isn’t it?  I’m sure there’ll be literature in the libraries a thousand years from now about the doomed, tragic love between Dahnai Merrane and Jason Karinne, a love that ignited the Fourth Civil War.”

        “You are insane,” Jason breathed in disbelief.  She was going to start a war on purpose!

        “No, I’m not insane, Jason,” she said evenly.  “Did you ever wonder why I’ve been so hot about finding out what you know?  Well, the simple answer is, hon, that Merrane is in a bad position.  The other Highborn houses have grown past us, and they can see our weakness.  They’re building alliances to try to overthrow us.  The seeds of this war were sown over twenty years ago, Jason. I’m just pouring water on the garden and making it grow faster.  This war will happen no matter what.  Whether it happens now, or happens in ten years, it will happen.  At this point, it is unavoidable.  What was happening on Terra should make that very clear to you. The Trillanes were in the first stage of a plan to start that war.  If I hadn’t have intervened, the Imperium would have been in the thick of it inside a year.  It was that close.  When I remembered my history and the lore about the Karinnes, I was hoping that I might be able to lure or woo or maybe even seduce something out of you that would solidify the Merrane position, some lost technology that might even the playing field and make the other houses think twice about a war.  But, your little speech has made it clear that my hope was a hollow one.  You are a man of great convictions, and I have no doubt you would have fallen on your own sword before giving me what I needed from you.  So, if you want to blame anyone for me sending you a white mey, look in the mirror.  You forced my hand.

        “Remember what you said to me?  That the Karinnes would never be a part of the Imperium as long as we are who we are?  Well, that made me think.  It really made me think.  I realized that there was two ways you could approach that vow, Jason.  You could stand back and do nothing, or you do something about it.

        “So, here are your choices, my betrothed.  You can do nothing, and watch the Imperium slowly kill itself, and watch the Faey who you love, but whose tendencies you hate, succumb to those tendencies and destroy each other.  Or you can use those mysterious, secret Karinne technologies to stand up and say no, you will not do this again.  The Karinnes were destroyed in the Third Civil War, Jason.  I should know, my house was the one who destroyed them.  Do you want to see more banners taken down from the audience chamber?  Do you want to stand back and watch millions die, and then live the rest of your life knowing you did nothing to try to stop it?

        “So, keep your secrets,  Jason Karinne.  I’ll never ask you about them again.  But for Trelle’s sake, don’t stand back and do nothing.  We can’t help being who we are.  We can’t help but make war.  The Dorranes and Shovalles can’t help but try to overthrow Merrane any more than Merrane can help fighting to retain the power it possesses.  We’re like little children, fighting over the best toys in the toybox.  So, be our responsible father, Jason Karinne.  Stop us from making a terrible mistake.”

        Holy shit.  She really did think this through.  She’d been ready for him, and she explained it all with an awful clarity that made her decision a coldly logical one.  And part of her logic was trying to make Jason take a stand, eith