Admiral Astrid Draper studies a holomap of the sole inhabited world in the Jackson System, Jackson V, capital Waco, as she finalises her plans to place Amazon forces on the planet. They'll touch down on Van Helsing's Land, a virtually untouched continent. By the time the Jacksonians realise what's going on, it'll be too late to do anything about it. "If they don't like it," ponders Draper, "they are more than welcome to lump it." A rival of Astrid Draper's at the Amazon Staff College once said of her, "If frowning takes more muscles than smiling, Astrid's face must be as strong as an ox." It's true that she is not given to frivolity, doesn't smile a huge amount and has never knowingly said anything funny. Still, she did pass out of that Staff College ahead of her rival (and all of her other rivals, for that matter) and then became the Empire's youngest ever Admiral. As far as the Empire's diplomatic corps is concerned, Draper is a liability, who shouldn't be permitted within three hundred light years of a holocam while sensitive negotiations are underway, but, to the military, she is the best woman for the job, if the talks fail. Terai Yuki 2 from CP.