Join Vayen as he returns to the Narvan to clean up the mess left by those who took over while he was away in the third book of this space opera series. He's advised the Navan before, pulled the government and economy out of a tailspin while dodging bullets, and dealt with the manipulative High Council. It should be easy to do it all again, right?
Plagued by PTSD, a lack of lucrative income, and dealing with a partner who's got his own ideas and another he can't stand make things tough. Then his worst nightmare shows up. Can he protect the Narvan, his family, and retain what little hold he has left on his sanity?
Excerpt:
“I hate to complain boss, but it’s been eleven days since anyone has tried to kill you. No one’s even threatened. I’m getting bored,” said Neko. He’d been my ever-present shadow since Stassia and I had decided to bring our family back to the Narvan six months ago.
“Sorry, I doubt the Premier is going to make things any more exciting for you.” Granted, he was five minutes late for our meeting, but I wasn’t going to get aggravated over that quite yet.
The door opened, allowing the Artorian Premier’s secretary to bustle in. “Please accept our most sincere apologies for the delay, Advisor Ta’set.”
He bowed and sat in the chair to the left of the Premier’s desk. The Premier joined us a moment later, his usually crisp and pressed shirt appeared rumpled and his thick silver chain of office hung askew. He wiped at a stray grey hair on his lined forehead and gave me a tight nod.
“Do we have a problem?” I asked.
“We need more funding. All this scrambling and juggling is going to fall apart any day. Work will grind to a halt and protests will spring up. It’s all downhill from there.” He shook his head and took his seat. “Your designated replacement drained us dry.”
“He has been dealt with.”
Merkief. The stench of burnt flesh made me gag. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“And I appreciate your advice on recovering our losses, truly, but it’s not enough.” His hands fidgeted on the desk. He licked his lips. “We’re going to need a loan.”
“A loan is only a bandage. We need to address long-term solutions.”
And I had no credits to loan, not after financing Jey’s reclaiming of the Narvan from Kess and then relocating my family during my imprisonment. Stassia’s income on Pentares had given us a little cushion upon our return, but on a good day, with a couple years worth of Kryon payouts thoroughly and wisely invested, I would have been hard-pressed to hand over the amount that it would take to bail out an entire planet’s financial problems.
“We’ve already addressed those solutions. Progress is being made, however, it’s not working fast enough.” He licked his lips again.
I rested my oversized grey replacement hand on the desk, mere inches away from his. His gaze darted to the ugly black nails protruding from the thick grey fingers. Stassia had suggested that I get a more fitting replacement now that we were back home, but I’d grown used to this mismatched one. It fit me just fine.
“You’ve enjoyed a long term of office,” I said.
He sat back in his chair, nostrils flaring. “This isn’t my fault. We did what was asked of us.
We’ve always given what you and your people ask for. Always. Because you’ve treated us well. You’ve helped us recover and grow and expand faster than we’d thought possible. I’m asking this one thing, this one time, for your people. We need this loan.”
Damn all the High Council manipulation and infighting between Merkief, Jey, and Kess. They’d created a hellish mess of the tidy and productive package I’d left behind. Jey had been making strides to set things right during my long absence, but there was a lot of damage to recover from. The Premier was right. It wasn’t his fault, and my people shouldn’t have to suffer for it.
I sighed. “I’ll need details, where the credits will go, what you’ll lose if you don’t get them. On each and every damn program potentially affected. Got it?”
Hopefully, Stassia could help me figure out how to pull credits out of nowhere. When we’d destroyed the High Council, we also destroyed our source of lucrative income. Jey and I had been strategizing for over a year before I’d returned to the Narvan, trying to figure out how we could generate the income we were used to having at our disposal. Neither of us had come up with a sustainable answer.
The Premier nodded and then gave me a look like a man about to ask how I meant to kill him. “And the terms of the loan?”
“Will be discussed when I give you my answer.”
He stared at the desktop. “And when—”
“When I get to it. This might be my homeworld, but it’s not the only planet in the Narvan.”
He stiffened. “Thank you for your kind offer, Advisor Ta’set. I’ll get that information to you shortly.”
I stood.
“Where to next?” asked Neko through our linked connection.
“Home.”
Hopefully no one would want to kill me there either. Neko might be bored, but I’d had enough of dodging bullets for several lifetimes.
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