Rita Longknife--Enemy in Sight Read online

  Rita Longknife - Enemy in Sight

  The Iteeche War, Volume 2

  Mike Shepherd

  Published by KL&MM Books, 2017.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  RITA LONGKNIFE - ENEMY IN SIGHT

  First edition. July 31, 2017.

  Copyright © 2017 Mike Shepherd.

  ISBN: 978-1386778004

  Written by Mike Shepherd.

  Rita Longknife: Enemy in Sight

  Book Two of the Iteeche War

  Mike Shepherd

  KL & MM Books

  Contents

  Praise for the Kris Longknife Novels

  Copyright Information

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Also by Mike Shepherd

  About the Author

  2017 Releases

  Praise for the Kris Longknife Novels

  “A whopping good read . . . Fast-paced, exciting, nicely detailed, with some innovative touches.” - Elisabeth Moon, Nebula Award-winning author of Crown Renewal

  * * *

  “Shepherd delivers no shortage of military action, in space and on the ground. It’s cinematic, dramatic, and dynamic . . . [He also] demonstrates a knack for characterization, balancing serious moments with dry humor . . . A thoroughly enjoyable adventure featuring one of science fiction’s most interesting recurring heroines.” - Tor.com

  * * *

  “A tightly written, action-packed adventure from start to finish . . . Heart-thumping action will keep the reader engrossed and emotionally involved. It will be hard waiting for the next in the series.” - Fresh Fiction

  * * *

  “[Daring] will elate fans of the series . . . The story line is faster than the speed of light.” - Alternative Worlds

  * * *

  “[Kris Longknife] will remind readers of David Weber’s Honor Harrington with her strength and intelligence. Mike Shepherd provides an exciting military science fiction thriller.” -Genre Go Round Reviews

  * * *

  “‘I’m a woman of very few words, but lots of action’: so said Mae West, but it might just as well have been Lieutenant Kris Longknife, princess of the one hundred worlds of Wardhaven. Kris can kick, shoot, and punch her way out of any dangerous situation, and she can do it while wearing stilettos and a tight cocktail dress. She’s all business, with a Hell’s Angel handshake and a ‘get out of my face’ attitude. But her hair always looks good . . . Kris Longknife is funny and she entertains us.” - SciFi Weekly

  * * *

  “[A] fast-paced, exciting military SF series . . . Mike Shepherd has a great ear for dialogue and talent for injecting dry humor into things at just the right moment . . . The characters are engaging, and the plot is full of twists and peppered liberally with sharply described action. I always look forward to installments in the Kris Longknife series because I know I’m guaranteed a good time with plenty of adventure.” -SF Site

  * * *

  In the New York Times bestselling Kris Longknife novels, “Fans of the Honor Harrington escapades will welcome the adventures of another strong female in outer space starring in a thrill-a-page military space opera.” - Alternative Worlds

  * * *

  “Military SF fans are bound to get a kick out of the series as a whole.” - SF Site

  Copyright Information

  Published by KL & MM Books

  August 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by Mike Moscoe

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction set 400 years in humanity’s future. Any similarity between present people, places or events would be spectacularly unlikely and is purely coincidental.

  This book is written and published by the author. Please don’t pirate it. I’m self-employed. The money I earn from the sales of these books allows me to produce more stories to entertain you. I’d hate to have to get a day job again. If this book comes into your hands free, please consider going to your favorite e-book provider and investing in a copy so I can continue to earn a living at this wonderful art.

  I would like to thank my wonderful cover artist, Scott Grimando, who did all my Ace covers and will continue doing my own book covers. I also am grateful for the editing skill of Lisa Müller, David Vernon Houston, Edee Lemonier, and as ever, Ellen Moscoe.

  Rev 1.0

  ISBN-13: 978-1974500932

  ISBN-10: 1974500934

  1

  Captain Rita Nuu-Longknife sat back in the rocker that had been added this cruise to her in-space cabin. She struggled to compose herself, to relax herself. She did not want her baby to take in her tension with his mother's milk.

  One of the nannies she'd brought aboard the heavy cruiser Exeter brought little Alex in. He was fussy. Rita hoped he was hungry, she had two painfully full breasts she should have given him to suck an hour ago.

  Now she offered her infant son a breast and he latched onto it hungrily. He calmed as he nursed, but he showed no sign of falling asleep. His deep blue eyes gazed up at her.

  "What are you doing on a heavy cruiser?" Rita asked her child. Little Al made no reply. Of course, the question really wasn't aimed at him.

  The question was for Rita.

  She, herself, as assistant Minister for Exploration, had found the money to bring this war relic back into commission, fit it out, and bring a crew aboard. That done, she'd demanded the right to command and gotten it from a Navy that only let women skipper attack transports.

  Since the Exeter wasn't bound for war, at least not yet, she'd been allowed to command it. She'd also gotten away with bringing an infant aboard so she could nurse him.

  She got the ship, and she got to go exploring.

  The fruit of her exploration was in the wardroom freezer, and several other freezers scattered around the ship. The Exeter's exploration had not led to rich new planets ready to receive hearty colonists who were eager to make a life for themselves out on the rim of space.

  No, Rita had found what she was looking for and praying not to find. She'd discovered the wreckage of a human ship, blown to bits so tiny it took all her science team's forensic skills to find out its type and place of construction. Of its crew, there was not a scrap of flesh or bone left to see.

  Several systems over, they'd found the evidence that an impossible story told by wild-eyed pirates was true.


  Again, the forensic team went through the wreckage of a ship. This one was less shot up, but that did them little good when it came to finding which human planet had built it.

  The metal was all wrong. The food, the equipment, the wiring . . . even what was left of the reactors . . . all was wrong. This ship was not a product of a human shipyard.

  But they already knew that.

  They'd found the bodies, preserved in the freezing vacuum of space. Bodies like none anyone had ever seen. Skulls with four eyes and a beak where a nose should be. Torsos with four arms that ended in hands with four fingers. Hips with four legs that ended in feet like none that had ever walked the Earth. And don't even try to count all the elbows and knees!

  Captain Rita Nuu-Longknife had discovered what she'd commissioned the Exeter to find. She'd found what she'd taken her tiny son to space in search of.

  Humanity was not along. Not anymore. First contact had been made by a bunch of bloody minded pirates looking for loot.

  Could the rest of humanity now find some way of reaching out peacefully to the first species we'd ever met in space? Alternately, were we condemned to meet our first alien contact with fire and blood?

  2

  General Ray Longknife, formerly of the 2nd Guard Brigade, Wardhaven Army, and officially the assassin of President Urm of Unity . . . it was in all the papers . . . scowled at the star map he’d been annotating. He started it as a work in progress shortly after Rita left to check on the pirate’s story.

  He did not like the story it told. Or maybe refused to tell.

  He’d included all the ships that he knew had gone missing in the last three months. He’d started with the Prosperous Goose, way off somewhere between Santa Maria and the rest of human space. He’d added a ship here, another there, as reports of vanished ships made it to his desk.

  So far, he didn’t have that many red X’s.

  What he did have was a bright yellow dot representing a single, questionable, ship of unknown origin.

  Of late, he’d had to add a new color. Orange markers now showed planets that had been raided by pirates, their crops stolen and, in some cases, men and women carried off.

  Too damn much of the sphere of human space was being blotched in one color or another.

  A few were on the far side from Wardhaven around the rim of the human sphere of colonization. Most however, were somewhere along his side of humanity’s spread among the stars.

  Ray studied the map for a long five minutes. When he was done, he didn’t know anything more than he had before.

  The only easy pattern was that most of the trouble was on his side of human space.

  Beyond that, not so much.

  Andy, retired captain from the Society of Humanity’s Navy and Ray’s number two man at the Wardhaven Ministry of Exploration, knocked and came in without waiting to be told to.

  “I have a bit of something from your friend, the spy.”

  Ray let his eyebrows crawl up his forehead. The spy had no name, at least not one anyone remembered. He ran the Wardhaven Intelligence Bureau, and occasionally he knew stuff before the people who would be doing a task knew what they were going to do.

  “What rumor has he deigned to drop on us today?” Ray said, dryly.

  “He has a list of private survey ships that have gone missing,” Andy noted. “Twelve of them.”

  “A full dozen!”

  “Yep, by my count.”

  “Can you add them to the map or do we have to do it the hard way?”

  “Let’s see how good I am with this newfangled technology,” the retired Navy captain said, and rested his reader near the net access point in front of Ray.

  The two systems beeped happily at each other for a few moments, then a series of red loops began to connect stars on Ray’s map.

  “Those were the jumps they were supposed to take out from and back to human space,” Andy said.

  Ray studied his map again. The red loops led to a certain section of space. True, it was a wide front, covering a good quarter of the sphere that humans had claimed by labor and goods for themselves. The red loops spread wide and covered a large area, but it was certainly showing a pattern.

  Finally, the dozen vanished ships and the missing exploration ships began to make a picture that spoke to Ray.

  “Notice something?” Andy asked.

  “Which something?” Ray asked.

  “You tell me,” Andy said.

  “About half, maybe a bit more of the ships that went missing are in human space,” Ray said.

  “Yep,” Andy agreed.

  “How much you want to bet me those were taken by our pirates?”

  “No bet,” Andy said with a friendly grin. The man had bet his life against Ray’s proud Guard Brigade and won. He claimed he’d used up all his luck beating Ray, and was likely right.

  “Smart man,” Ray agreed. “Now, these other ships. The Goose, and the Witch of the Westmorlands out of Lorna Do, and all of the dozen the spy just got his hands on, they’re way out there.”

  “And notice,” Andy said, “that the Jackpot No. 27 passes only a couple of systems away from where the Bucket of Blood claimed to pop an alien.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” Ray said.

  “Who do you think we ought to show this to?” Andy asked.

  “Let me call my father-in-law,” Ray said, and tapped his commlink. “I’ll see if he can drop by here ASAP.”

  3

  Ray was not at all surprised by who showed up for his meeting with Earnie Nuu, his father-in-law.

  The spy arrived before Earnie did. He eyed the star map, smiled and asked where the Scotch was. Ray pointed him in the right direction. The spy expressed delight at the amount of ice on hand.

  Ernie was next, but walking in his shadow was the platinum blond. Today she wore a dress that was bright red and short at the bottom, plunging at the top. The teenager in Ray found himself hoping for something to come up or fall down, but the more mature Ray was pretty sure what he saw was all he’d see tonight.

  Behind her were Red Tie and Blue Tie. These two strange, non-communicative men and the no less expressive platinum blond were his conduits to the Powers That Be in the Society of Humanity. At least, that was what Ray suspected. The two guys headed for the liquor cabinet. Ray held out a chair, then seated the young woman. The first and only time they’d met, she’d been quick to assert that she was somebody’s wife. Ever the officer and a gentleman, he asked her what she would like to drink, and then provided her with a white wine, no doubt of a poorer vintage than she was used to.

  When everyone was served, Ray turned the briefing over to Andy. He quickly went through the identified locations or routes of lost ships: humanity, and the one potential alien.

  “What are the orange lights?” the woman asked.

  “The pirates have taken to raiding the newer, outer colonies for food and the occasional workers or pretty girl. At least all but one of those lights involve an agrarian planet. The single exception is Leadville, a mineral extraction site with its own smelters that produces a refined output of iron, silver, gold, titanium, and the like. I suspect the pirates’ yard wanted the raw feedstock to repair some of their ships.”

  “And gold, no doubt,” the woman said, then took a sip of her wine. “What is a pirate without a little gold?”

  “Most pirates I’ve met preferred briefcases,” Andy muttered softly.

  The woman smiled, but made no comment.

  “So,” Ray said, bringing the meeting back to the map. “The losses in our own space can likely be laid at the pirates’ door. It’s the deep losses that remain a question mark to me. Also, I think you should note the closeness of the alleged location of our destroyed alien ship to one of the missing human scouts. Jackpot No. 27, as you may note.”

  “You think the alien we killed may have first killed one of our scouts?” the lady asked.

  “There’s no way to possibly draw any conclusion, other than to say that that part of
space is getting a bit rambunctious.”

  “Rambunctious. A good word,” she said, and again sipped her wine.

  “What do you propose to do?” the spy asked.

  “Just what I’ve done,” Ray said. “I’ve correlated all the data that has surfaced at the moment. I’ve handed it back to you. All of you,” he said, glancing around the group.

  “Now, I suspect that you will pass it back up to your interested parties. I’m working with the Navy here on Wardhaven to get a half-dozen heavy cruisers away from the pier and out there, patrolling our immediate space, but I’d like you to point out to anyone you talk to that the ships that went lost on deep scouting missions may well have been lost very deep. The Bucket of Blood may have been about as deep as any of these when she ran into her reputed alien.”

  “What are you getting at?” the woman said, putting down her wine glass. It was still much more than half full.