The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(13)

“She’s not really a problem anymore for you.”

“She’s still alive. So she’s still a problem. For now.”

“‘For now’?” Assan asked.

Jasin ignored this. “You need to get a one-on-one meeting with Grayland,” he said. “Find out what’s really going on with her.”

“I’ve been trying to get a meeting with her since I arrived,” Assan protested. “I keep being shoved down the schedule. You should ask for a meeting with her. And take me with you.”

“That’s not usually done,” Jasin said. “The emperox has an annual courtesy meeting with the House of Wu board once a year, and otherwise everything is handled by underlings.”

“The emperox claiming visions isn’t usually done either,” Assan pointed out.

Jasin grunted again at this. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and switched off.

Assan took a sip from his whiskey and placed a second secure call, this one to Deran Wu, cousin of Jasin, also on the board of the House of Wu.

“You wanted a report on this session?” Assan asked, and then gave Deran roughly the same report he’d given Jasin.

“You gave Jasin the same report?” Deran asked.

“Pretty much,” Assan said.

“And his reaction?”

“He’s concerned it will affect shipbuilding.”

Deran snorted. “That’s because he’s an idiot. Anything we lose on ships we gain in weapons sales and security assignments.”

“In the short term,” Assan pointed out. “If the emperox is correct about the Flow streams collapsing.”

Deran made a dismissive motion. “Grayland’s loopy, and it’s not going to take that long for the rest of the house to recognize that and take steps.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you don’t need to worry about it right now. And that it would have been nice if Nadashe Nohamapetan had managed to finish the job when she sent that shuttle to plow into my dear cousin. That was a piece of work.”

“I don’t think Jasin is pleased she’s still alive. Nadashe Nohamapetan, I mean. Not Grayland.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware of Jasin’s opinions on that matter. He’s not shy about that.”

“It wouldn’t look great for the emperox if something were to happen to Nohamapetan.”

“No,” Deran said. “And that’s not how I would want that particular chess piece to be taken off the board. Either chess piece, in this case. Which is another thing you don’t need to worry about right now, Teran.”

“Of course.”

“You should try to get a meeting with Grayland one to one.”

“She’s ducking me.”

“Well, let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?” Deran smiled and then cut the connection.

Assan smiled too, but to himself. He finished his drink and made his third and final call for the evening.

“Yes?” the voice on the other end said.

“I’m calling for Lady Nohamapetan.”

“She is … indisposed.”

“I’m aware of that. I’m also aware I can leave a message with you and it will get to her.”

“What is it?”

“I believe she will want a report on this session.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then:

“Go on.”





Chapter

3

As the assassin came at her with a toothbrush shiv, Nadashe Nohamapetan’s first thought on the matter was, Well, that took longer than I had expected. She had been in the imperial holding facility for more than a month at that point. The fact Grayland II was only sending someone for her now was borderline offensive.

Her second thought, which she vocalized, was, “Oh, shit.” Whether one is theoretically expecting to get a toothbrush (or whatever) through the ribs, when the sharpened object is honing in on you, carried by someone who looks like her job on the outside was strangling livestock, it’s all right to let out a little profanity.

To be honest, it was just a capper on a really less than spectacular month for Nadashe Nohamapetan.

But then, she’d known the risks when she set up her brother Amit—in more than one sense of the term—with Grayland on that starship tour, and then shoved a shuttlecraft into the cargo bay at full speed. She knew them, and that they were manageable. After all, it was entirely reasonable to expect that the result of that would have been the emperox smeared over the deck of the bay, or sucked into the vacuum of space, or some combination of the two. The shuttle was big enough, it would be going fast enough, and the bay large enough. Really, it was just bad luck that the proximity alarms had triggered literally seconds too soon, giving Grayland just enough time to be shoved under a rapidly closing vacuum door.

She then also managed to survive the newly constructed ship tearing itself apart due to rotational forces, sealed off in a passage tube that was slowly leaking air. Grayland should have been dead by shuttle, then by the deconstruction of the ship, and then finally by simple clean lack of oxygen.

And that’s not even talking about the assassination attempt at her coronation.

Grayland was, literally, a lucky bastard.