Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion, #1)(46)

But the kid wasn’t at fault, so I dropped into my most formal curtsy. It looked a little ridiculous in pants, but Lin smiled shyly at me. I inclined my head. “Lord Lin, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

He giggled and pressed against Veronica’s leg. She turned him toward Loch. “That is Mr. Loch.” Lin slipped from her grasp and darted over to the larger man. Veronica’s jaw clenched but she didn’t call him back. Lin held out his tiny hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Loch,” he said, carefully mimicking my earlier words.

Loch uncrossed his arms and shook Lin’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too, squirt.”

“Will I grow up big as you?” Lin asked in awe.

“You might. If you eat your vegetables and listen to your mother.”

Lin raced back to Veronica. “Can we have vegetables for dinner?”

She smiled and ruffled his hair. “We can have whatever you want, pumpkin. But I don’t want you to bother Mr. Loch, okay? He’s very busy.”

Lin’s face fell. He kicked a toe at the floor. “Yes, Momma.”

Now that I knew Veronica wasn’t planning a mutiny, I needed to get us off-planet stat. “I’ll leave you to unpack and settle in. I’m going to get us out of here before Richard regroups.”

Loch followed me to the flight deck. “The kid is going to be a problem.”

“I know,” I said.

“But you’re not leaving them.”

“No,” I said.

“Didn’t figure you would,” Loch said. “Wouldn’t let you, anyway,” he muttered.

A quick glance confirmed the foxy had finally run its course. Loch wavered on his feet. I pulled him over to an empty chair and he slid bonelessly into it. I needed to grab a med scanner to make sure he didn’t have any hidden injuries, but it would have to wait until I’d plotted our course.

I dropped into the captain’s chair and pulled up the navigation control. The FTL drive was fully charged and would be able to jump as soon as we cleared the atmosphere. Now for the moment of truth—how far could we go?

I pulled up a list of reachable locations. The list included the space station I’d started at, the closest gate, and a few planets up to three thousand light-years away. This ship definitely had House internals, and good ones at that. Richard would be foaming at the mouth to get it back.

The gate was the obvious choice. I had no doubt Richard had an array of tracking devices attached to this ship, and I’d never find them all. But if I could get far enough away, the tracking beacons would take so long to reach him that they would essentially become useless.

I plotted a course to Earth, just to see how long the computer thought we’d have to wait at the gate while the FTL drive reset. I frowned at the estimate and changed the destination. But no matter how many different locations I tried, the estimated wait time was the same: one hour. I plotted a course with two jumps and each jump was only going to require an hour’s wait.

An hour turnaround on an FTL drive was impossible. House von Hasenberg scientists were shaving minutes off of six hours and calling it a breakthrough. What we’d heard from the other Houses was the same. And, as far as I knew, even if you had the power stored for a second jump, there was no way to cool the FTL drive sufficiently in so little time without damaging it.

So.

Crap.

Either the estimate was wrong, which would make us sitting ducks for an indeterminate amount of time, or, more worryingly, the estimate was right, which meant Richard would blow us out of the sky at the first opportunity rather than letting me steal the secret.

“Incoming communication,” the computer chimed. The screen showed it originated from ground control, but I would bet good money that it was Richard. I weighed the pros and cons, then pressed the answer key on my console. It would keep the video on me rather than the entire room.

Richard wiped the fury from his face, but not fast enough. “Hello, Richard,” I said. My aristocratic persona was firmly in place.

“Ada, what are you doing?”

“I am leaving. What are you doing?”

He ran a hand down his face and suddenly he looked more tired than I’d ever seen him. “I’m trying to stop a war. You are not helping.”

“You have an interesting way of going about it.”

“I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’re the one who ran away. If we were already married, this wouldn’t be happening. If we marry quickly, we may still be able to prevent it. If not, well, you would make an excellent bargaining piece.”

I ignored the last part because that was just standard House policy. The first part was more intriguing. “We are both far down the House hierarchy. What does our marriage have to do with anything?”

Richard’s expression closed. Ah. Something about that was important. What did he stand to gain from our marriage? He would gain the contents of my dowry. But I didn’t know what all it entailed or how it would prevent war. I made a mental note to look into it.

“I will tell you the same thing I told Father: I will not be forced into marriage. He did not believe me. He thought I would bow to his wishes if he applied enough pressure. He was wrong. I suggest you learn from his mistake.”

“You would rather send your House to war than marry me? We were friends once.” Richard seemed genuinely hurt.