“Then you may tell the countess, and you may quote me fully, that I don’t give a fuck. Someone just tried to kill my emperox for the second time on my watch. You can be assured that I will find out who it is. And if it is you, or your mother, or anyone involved with the House of Lagos, I won’t care how high and mighty you are, or how much you intimidate your underlings. I’ll take you down, and your entire house, if I have to.”

“I’ll let her know.”

“Do that. And now, Lady Kiva, if you’ll excuse me, my people have to get back to work.” He went and opened the door to let his guards and investigators back into the room. Kiva watched them file in and then got out of the chair, left the office, and headed toward the elevator bank. As she did so a guard detached herself from her duties and walked toward her.

“Oh, come on,” Kiva said, to the guard. “Your asshole boss said you would be discreet.”

“This is discreet,” the guard said, standing next to her.

Kiva resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Sergeant Brenja Pitof.”

“Well, Sergeant, am I going to get a moment to myself between now and whenever the end of this is?”

“Not really, no.”

“So you’re going to watch me when I take a dump.”

“No.”

“Good.”

“As long as the bathroom doesn’t have a window or a second exit.”

The elevator door opened and Kiva stepped inside. Sergeant Pitof followed.

“Press the ‘Ground’ button,” Kiva said.

“I’m supposed to follow you, Lady Kiva, not be your servant,” Pitof said. Then she pushed the button anyway.

* * *

“Where are you?” Captain Blinnikka said to Kiva, over her tablet, the one the Imperial Guard hadn’t confiscated.

“I’m in my hotel room bathroom,” Kiva said.

“What’s that noise?”

“It’s the shower.”

“You’re calling me from the shower?”

“No, I’m running the shower so I can talk to you. I have a fucking guard in my hotel room.”

“What’s the guard doing?”

Lying on the bed after a particularly exhausting bout of screwing, Kiva thought, but did not say. Kiva decided that as long as she was going to be that closely watched, she might as well get something out of it. “Waiting for me to be done showering, so maybe let’s get to the subject. Which is, what the fuck happened with our shuttle?”

“It was coming back from Imperial Station when the communications went dead and it piloted itself to the dock where the Sing Out was being built and rammed itself into the damn thing. Imperial Guard craft opened up on it as it came in but they didn’t manage to destroy it before it hit.”

“Who was the pilot?”

“Ling Xi.”