”“What do you want to ask me?” she inquired with a playful smile on her full lips.“We were just joking around earlier, about you being my Matr...arch,” he began, staring into her enchanting cerulean eyes. “But we both know things have changed there.”“You’re referring to how you turned me into a mighty Progenitor I assume?” she teased him.He arched an eyebrow, and replied, “You’re reading my mind, you know what I’m asking.”She pivoted on the sofa, sitting up and turning towards him in a graceful. The Chencon had not even been exposed to the concept.Knowing the almost exact time the Chencons would appear allowed the High Admiral to rest his crews. The RSN went to action stations as the Chencons came out of hyper. The progress of the Chencons was carefully assessed and calculated with the High Admiral needing only to make a few minor adjustments to his preparations. Renmark harbour control transmitted the expected challenges which were ignored anyway.The massed Chencon fleet moved over. "More shit with illegals and probably with drugs. It seems all of our big problems lately are from illegals. The new problem is they are becoming more daring and confrontational. I hate to think it's coming to a border war."John said, "We have a full load of fuel with a range of over 2,400 miles. San Diego is right at 2,100 miles so if we don't hit any headwinds, we won't have to refuel. We should make it by just about nine. Go use the onboard communications links and advise someone to pick you. ” “Why not.” “Yeah ... that’ll work.”We grinned again, rather satisfied with each other.Then I said, “Might be more.”Abbie rounded on me, “Will you shut up!?”She looked at the ceiling ... at the floor ... out the window ... at the ceiling again ... counted on her fingers and said, “Fourteen million, one hundred forty one thousand, one hundred forty dollars.” She looked stunned for a bit ... sat down with a thud ... got back up ... looked at us both.“Okay ... who did you kill?”“Nobody.”There was.