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military base, sort of. And you’re supposed to be on Romane. Or something.”
    Kennedy’s eyes narrowed until she was frowning. “You look like shit.”
    “You did wake me up from a nap.”
    “Not what I mean. You look like you’ve been on a month-long bender. Have you?”
    “No, Ken, I have not. I’ve just had a long week.” Walked the streets of a city bathed in blood and stood amid a hundred thousand corpses. Negotiated a three-way peace treaty among opposing factions of a warring alien species who’d previously held me captive. Bullied the Metigen leadership into doing my bidding. Found out we’re not the real humans, and the real humans are currently enslaving the real universe. Oh, and I think I’m addicted to my ship. How was your week? “Nothing a shower and food won’t fix. You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
    Kennedy sat down across from her and leaned forward intently. “You’ve seen the ships outside? The new ones?”
    She nodded. “Some of them. They’re exquisite.”
    “You bet they are. I designed them, supplied the adiamene and helped set up the manufacturing for them.”
    “You did what?”
    “While you were off cavorting through portals, I built your mother a fleet.”
    “Wow.” Alex blinked deliberately, and the surroundings finally regained a reasonable level of fidelity. “Impressive. Thank you.”
    “I didn’t do it for you. So, what’s the scoop? Find any grand, existential, cosmic answers?”
    “A few.” She went to grab an energy drink from the fridge compartment. “Met some intriguing aliens, and some frightening ones. Watched some of them die, saved some. Not as many.”
    “Well, that’s morbid. Was it worth it?”
    “Worth going?”
    “Worth running off and leaving us to clean up the mess you left behind.”
    She froze, the drink halfway to her lips. “Excuse me?”
    Kennedy perched on the arm of the chair. “I’m not saying you were wrong to go. But creating the Prevos changed everything. Upended our culture, disrupted governments. You had to know there would be repercussions. Yet you did what you always do—you ran off to have an adventure and left the rest of us to do the hard work of dealing with the fallout.”
    “You think what I’ve been doing wasn’t hard work? If you knew the things I’ve seen, the choices I’ve had to make, you’d never say that.”
    “Then tell me what you’ve seen. Tell me what you’ve done, and maybe I’ll understand better.”
     

3
    EARTH
    W ASHINGTON
E ARTH A LLIANCE H EADQUARTERS
----
    P AMELA W INSLOW LOOKED UPON the man seated across her desk with disdain and a hint of disappointment. “I am failing to understand how it is possible that we cannot control our own military communications network. If interference is coming from elsewhere, block it. We must have security firewalls that accomplish such things as a matter of procedure.”
    The EASC Logistics Director, Brigadier Ojeda, fidgeted under her scrutiny. “It’s not so simple, Prime Minister. The network hub itself was moved—not the hardware but the entirety of the governing system, presumably to new hardware elsewhere. We can’t block it because it’s not interference—it is the network. It’s just not located here on Earth any longer.”
    “Because it’s on Messium.”
    “It appears so, yes, ma’am.”
    “Solve the problem, Brigadier, even if you have to cut Messium out of the network to do it.”
    “But it’s an Alliance world and the seat of a Regional Command.”
    “It looks to me as if it’s in the hands of an enemy. Are we clear?”
    “Yes, ma’am. But respectfully, it’s impossible. As matters now stand, I can’t cut the Northeast Regional Command out of the Armed Forces communications network, seeing as I don’t control the network—Northeast Regional Command does.”
    “Fine. Continue issuing orders to the individual Divisions directly. You may copy Generals Foster and Colby when applicable.