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down, she called a time-out so everyone on her team could take advantage of the new spidersilk armor.
    Which turned out to be a lot tougher to get into than Kris Longknife ever mentioned. After much pulling and yanking, use of talc, and not a few nasty words as hair was pulled out of delicate places, Vicky, Kit, and Kat were ready to dress again.
    “I wonder how the men are making out,” Kit said, through a giggle.
    “We should have offered to help them,” Kat giggled back.
    “But then we’d never have made it down to Sevastopol. At least not today,” Kit insisted.
    “We would so jump them,” Kat agreed.
    Vicky was only too aware that she had not jumped or been jumped by anyone in far too long. She was trying to persuade herself that a real Grand Duchess didn’t jump men or women at every convenient moment of the day or night.
    At least Mannie didn’t seem to behave that way and, so far, Mannie was her best example of how someone with power used it, and used it in ways that got people behind him.
    Vicky took a deep breath, suppressed the image of Mannie sandwiched between, among, and within Vicky and her impulsive assassins, and donned her undress whites. She had a lot of work ahead of her.
    Mannie was waiting at the spaceport with a limo for her and her team.
    “I was expecting you as soon as I got word that fabricators from Metzburg were raining from the sky as fast as those marvelous heavy-lift LCTs could drop. Things must have gone quickly.”
    “Your advance men did a lot of prework. My stepmom made her usual threats to do horrible things to people if they talked with me. That didn’t stop them; though it did make them a bit reluctant to shake hands on any deals. Then stepmommy dearest had the usual attack made on my life, and folks on Metzburg got angry. Things moved faster after that.”
    Mannie shook his head. “I don’t know what to react to: her trying to throttle anything we do for our own good or her trying to kill you.”
    “Thanks for thinking of me a close second,” Vicky said, and pulled what bit of spidersilk armor she could from her throat. “I now have some of Kris Longknife’s miraculous body armor. Nothing’s getting at me now.”
    Mannie seemed delighted at that. Vicky searched his smile for any hint that he might have wanted to get at her, even a little bit. If it was there, he hid it well. With them sharing the back of the limo with the commander, the spy, and two tiny assassins, he didn’t so much as rest his hand on hers.
    “I have a meeting scheduled in an hour. We need to talk about how things are developing and head off any problems before they get too bad,” the mayor of Sevastopol said. “I’d heard that the Retribution was in system and that you might be available, but I didn’t want to bother you with just our local problems.”
    Vicky couldn’t think of anything Mannie might do that would be a bother, but she ignored that for the moment. “It appears that I do have some problems to lay before your committee.”
    “Problems?”
    “Mr. Smith, run the Emperor’s message to me.”
    “Immediately, Your Grace,” and his computer began to project a small hologram of the Emperor in front of Vicky and Mannie. He went through his fatherly concerns again.
    “Nice computer you have there,” Mannie said.
    “I just had it upgraded in Longknife space,” the spy answered.
    “So,” Mannie said, turning to Vicky.
    “There’s more.”
    Now the spy projected the Empress in all her pregnant roundness and red-faced rage.
    “Oh,” Mannie said, when the Empress’s threats vanished back into thin air. “She is not a nice woman. And your father wants you back there with her, huh?”
    “So it would seem. There is one more message you should see.”
    “I don’t think so, Your Grace,” the commander put in.
    “I don’t intend for this message to be shown at the coming meeting,” Vicky answered back, “but Mannie needs to know all the cards that are in our