The two exited the flyer and crossed the rooftop toward an entrance to the top level. “I actually am pleased to see you again so soon,” said the other. When they got inside the hallway, Karma kindly averted her eyes so that Soleil could adjust her projection to show herself as herself. In this provided, private space, she had decided to meet Ravl Pliskin face to face, to see if she could initiate some helpful arrangements. She wore her Vedani piloting suit plainly. Next to her, Karma Ilacqua was in fresh togs and well-heeled boots. “You really know how to make things happen.”

“Thank you, it is my chosen profession. This also precipitates a rare opportunity to meet with my boss. I haven’t seen him for a while, but in my experience he’s been easy to talk to, a good communicator. Go ahead and deliver it straight, whatever you’re coming to say or ask. He can handle it.” Wasting no time, Karma prompted their progress down the hallway. They went smoothly and without too much hurry.

They reached a windowed atrium, where Ravl Pliskin stood sipping from a glass of water. He turned and took a few steps to meet them. Looking Princess Ascendant Soleil in the eyes, Pliskin said nothing, standing ready to listen. He asked no questions, and made no remarks or unnecessary implications. Ilacqua saw that he didn’t trouble with niceties, and also left the air clear for the Princess. Soleil smiled with relief before taking a breath to speak.

“You have a very large deal or set of deals underway. I myself witnessed the final results, for what I could understand of them. You also have powerful holdings that may be affected by dramatic shifts in associated markets. Much is changing as we speak. Your subsidies can aid or slow the systems dependent upon them. I know that you know all these things, but I am reiterating, for you, my knowledge of them; so you may understand from whence this thought process originates.” Ravl nodded with clear understanding. Soleil produced an encased chip and presented it before her. “I made you some charts and graphs. These may communicate to you the market factors I can perceive from the information I have learned. These are for you, specifically. I can say this to you right now: buy at a bargain, sell at a premium.”

The finest remaining ships held a tight formation in stasis around the royal family’s secure bunker ship in deep space. When they’d exited the Imperial court starting on their way here, they’d put on a show of going on a short vacation. They waved goodbye to people, and made shallow promises of prompt return. The ships that escorted them into space were a heavier force than the usual detail. Not just a guard, but a final guard.

King Proxem Grant Vario was pilot of the family’s vessel, with the younger of his daughters and two sons inside. He had decided on a textbook strategic withdrawal in accordance with the defensive strength still present after the devastation of the Photuris Vortex, the city shutdown zone attacks, and the fleet wipe. They could muster an adequately impenetrable defense for the lineage, and Vario decided to do so before anything compromised that. This kind of extreme threat to the royal family had happened only very few times in the history of the Pan-Galactic Imperium. Grant Vario was sullen.

Little Carlo looked at his father thinking of asking him to play, then thought better of it. Instead, he took on his father’s mood and turned it on him. “Why is everything so weird,” he said with little expectation of response.

His older sister Mireille intercepted the communication for everyone’s sake. “Carlo, we’re in grave danger.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Everywhere,” said their brother Cristobal, “The danger is everywhere, but here.” He was poring over some files he brought that otherwise held his attention. He would occasionally lift a glance to his father, his sister, and his brother. He was also doodling in his notebook.

Mireille refrained from asking her father what he was doing about it. He did not look entirely well. Instead she asked, “King my father, can you show me the next flight system?” They’d already been over the first two emergency getaway protocols, making sure that Mireille also knew how to control this vessel.

They started going through the functions of a row of knobs. Vario looked at his daughter, and considered her maturity regarding the possibility of being next in the line. Her sister may not return, and he himself might not make it through this. Nineteen wasn’t the youngest age in their dynasty for the unexpected burden. Vario’s reckoning was at hand, and the math wasn’t working out well for him, no matter which way he turned the equation. Something would be coming for him. It might get the kids, or it might not. He knows he got some things wrong, really wrong, but he’d been holding onto his justification. He told himself he was serving the Imperium; he told himself he was serving his family; looking at them now, quietly enduring this floating bunker, he wonders if he might only be serving himself at this point. He hates it, enough to want to lie to himself some more. The feeling that he couldn’t keep doing that any longer told him that the world he knew was coming to an end.

She’d flown before, but in this circumstance, everything was happening for the first time. Princessa Mireille focused and learned the controls.