Kris Longknife: Resolute Read online

  The prosecution rested its case at three o’clock. The court adjourned to let the defense think on its case that night. It didn’t help. The next day’s presentation by Jinks was strident and hardly helped him. By noon the judges had ruled; ten years incarceration to be arranged at salt mines up the coast from Inside Strait, and forfeiture of the ship involved in the crimes, “to pay court costs and replacement costs of the lost property. All other benefits from the sale of said ship to accrue to Chance’s general fund with a strong recommendation from this court that they be used for the common defense, and spent quickly.” And Judge Maydell gaveled the proceedings to a close.

  Almost.

  Once Jinks and the hard cases had been removed, Judge Maydell brought her gavel down again. “The court will now entertain proposals for the disposal of that ship. We understand Lieutenant Longknife would like to buy it.”

  “I would, Your Honor,” Kris said from where she’d been sitting in the back row of seats, surrounded by kids taking a break from working on the Patton.

  “Andy, you have any idea what a proper price is?” Judge Ardnet asked the lawyer who a moment ago had been Mr. Prosecutor.

  “When the court ordered the ship forfeited, I had my assistant start a search on recent sales of similar ships on Lorna Do and in the Helvetica Confederacy. That’s all we have in our database. However, the armament and the smart-metal defense are hard to place a value on.”

  “I might be able to offer some assistance on that,” Kris said. “I worked on a project involving the modification of the Kamikaze class, so I have the present value of Smart Metal. Nelly, feed that to the court.”

  DONE, but the real verification was Ardnet’s whistle.

  “That stuff doesn’t come cheap.”

  “Nor do four twenty-four-inch pulse lasers,” Kris said, and added what Nuu Enterprises charged for arming a Kamikaze.

  “We couldn’t charge that much for this ship on the open market,” Andy muttered.

  “I’m not sure we’d want to sell all that to just anyone,” Judge Maydell said.

  “I’m willing to pay that price,” Kris said, “for the ship in that configuration.”

  “And what would you do with the ship?” Judge Maydell asked.

  “Keep it here at High Chance. Initially,” Kris said, then shrugged. “For how long? That would depend on . . .” She considered several ways to end the sentence. Whatever she said would be on the news in an hour. She left the sentence dangling.

  “I can think of a dozen reasons the young lady might have to move on,” Judge Billie said. “None of them good for Chance. But at least some of us Proud Old Vets are happy to have you.”

  Kris appreciated the sentiments, but she did have a problem. “Your Honor, if it pleases the court, there is a problem with the sale of the ship and disposal of the funds you generate.” Kris filled them in on the hope by the crew of the Resolute that there might be some prize money in it for them.

  “That doesn’t please the court,” Judge Maydell said. “But we should not bind the mouths of the kin that tread the grain. Clearly, they earned something at the risk of their very lives.”

  “If I may offer an alternative,” Andy said, “the actual cost of the ship, verses the value of the weapons and Smart Metal added might serve as a good basis for splitting the sale. We take the value of the basic ship. They get the premium Her Highness is paying for the military aspects.”

  “We’d be better off taking the other,” Ardnet muttered.

  “But it was the lasers that they were betting their lives against.” Judge Maydell’s gavel was up. “This court holds that the crew gets the value of the warship part. Chance gets the value of the ship. Court is adjourned. Your Highness, we will take a check.” And the gavel came down.

  Kris had Nelly draw up a credit voucher for the clerk of the court. He reminded her not to remove said property “until said voucher cleared.” It felt strange to have a voucher in her name questioned. But this was a rather large one, and Chance was out at the end of nowhere.

  Navigator Sulwan Kann just happened to duck her head in the courtroom. “You done here?” she asked.

  Wondering how rapidly news traveled on her station, Kris motioned Sulwan over and told her how much of the ship’s sales price would be available to divide up among the crew of the Resolute. Sulwan raised an eyebrow at the amount. “Good thing we already agreed on who got what part of it. Captain Drago found something in the Ancient History section of the net and we all bought in. He included a portion for you, the ship owner.”

  “Not for me. I’m buying the ship and it wouldn’t feel right to get part of the prize money back for having taken it.”

  “Do we get a part of the pot?” Chief Beni asked as he and Abby just happened to walk in. Kris made a mental note never to count on privacy in her station.

  “Yep, same as any crew member.”

  “Well, Princess, when’s payday?” Abby asked.

  So Kris was escorted over to the Resolute. The entire crew just happened to be aboard, and quickly lined up for pay. Nelly produced credit vouchers as required for each and every hand . . . including Jack. “You risked your neck,” Kris said.

  “That’s part of my job.”

  “Yes, but according to the ancient laws of the sea, today you get paid for it.”

  Gingerly, Jack took the check. “More than a year’s pay.”

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” Abby said with a laugh.

  “I hope you won’t need my ship for a few days,” Captain Drago said with a broad smile directed at his crew. Several nodded enthusiastic agreement.

  “Actually, I was thinking I might,” Kris said. “Could I talk privately to you and Sulwan for a moment.”

  “In my cabin,” the captain said with a grin.

  “Jack, can we have a moment?”

  What to do next had been eating at Kris. The powers that be on Chance wanted her gone. Where was the question. Kris would have headed for New Bern, to check out that flank. But she was getting negative replies back from the messages she’d sent out the day she got back. Some were no surprise.

  The reply under General McMorrison’s signature read as if the Prime Minister had dictated it. “Problems like disappearing buoys are to be expected in unsettled times like these” she could almost hear Father say. “So good of you to catch those responsible. Be sure to turn them over to authorities on Chance for prosecution. Please remember not to use your own funds to circumvent the policy established by my, no, the official budget. Now be a good little girl and behave yourself.”

  Grampa Al did not sound all that grateful that Kris had found a new use for Smart Metal. Indeed, he seemed offended that she had discovered what his own R & D staff hadn’t. Or maybe they had discovered it but, since it cut into potential profits, kept mum about it. There were times when Kris found it easier to understand why some serving officers had so little taste for businessmen. This was one of them.

  Grampa Trouble’s short reply had been a balm. “Wow, gal! Getting them to board you so you’d have an easier time capturing them! Sounds like something Ray or I might have thought up in our younger days. Good going, kid!”

  The real surprise was the quick and blunt reply from New Bern. Verbal only, the unidentified sender did not mince words.

  “We do not know what you are doing here in our sector of space, but a visit now would complicate matters. People would meet you, and when next you stuck your neck out and were about to have it chopped off, we might feel pressure to ride to your rescue. You can understand our reluctance to have footage sympathetic to you in our media archives. Please stay away.”

  Maybe Kris should have given more thought to her reply, but she shot back her first version.

  “As you probably know by now, somebody blew all the jump buoys between us and Brenner Pass. Unless you fancy having Peterwald space getting as close to you as Chance, you might want to start paying more attention to this end of space. While you can tell me not
to come, and I will respect your views, you may find that Peterwald battleships are a bit harder to talk to.”

  Kris would have preferred to say that in person, more delicately, but swapping messages left little room for finesse.

  But with New Bern off her travel plans, Kris was left with time on her hands and a need to go. Why not give Nelly a treat?

  WEE! Nelly shouted in the back of Kris’s skull. WE’RE GOING TO GO EXPLORING. WE’RE GOING TO GO EXPLORING.

  NOT IF YOU GIVE ME A HEADACHE.

  On the way to the captain’s cabin, Kris took Jack aside and brought the Marine in on the “other” reason Kris had jumped at command of Naval District 41.

  Jack shook his head. “So that’s what this is all about.”

  “I’ll give you a full briefing when I bring the captain and navigator in on the secret. My question to you is security. Do you feel safe spending weeks with this crew while we look at what Nelly thinks may be very unique alien finds?”

  “What do you think we’ll discover?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “It could be valuable.”

  “Or it could be dust. Most likely it will be somewhere in the middle. And most of what we see we won’t understand.”

  “Why do this all by yourself? And why not give us poor working folks some warning about what we’re headed for?”

  “I’m Great-grampa Ray’s little girl. Maybe exploring is in our blood. I don’t know. It’s out there and I want to be first to see it.”

  “Me too,” Nelly added.

  “They don’t pay me enough for this job,” Jack moaned as he followed Kris into the captain’s cabin. A moment later, Captain Drago and his navigator filed into the room, sat down across from Kris, and said nothing.

  Kris eyed Sulwan. “I was wondering whether Navigation Officer Kann noticed some strange objects in the Chance and neighboring systems?”

  The navigator glanced at her captain before answering. “You mean those fuzzy things on my screen.”

  YES!

  DOWN, GIRL, WE DO THIS MY WAY, SO BE QUIET OR FORGET ABOUT US GOING EXPLORING.

  YOU ARE MEAN TO ME AND A SLAVE DRIVER AND I WILL BE QUIET.

  “Yes,” Kris said to the navigator, trying to keep two conversations straight. “What do you take them for?”

  “I don’t know,” Sulwan said.

  “What fuzzy things?” the captain asked.

  “There’s one in the Chance system,” his navigator answered. “Another one in the next. They show up on our scans just like jump points, but not. A jump point is a solid gravitational expression on my nav board. Every jump point I’ve ever seen looks the same. A point. These two aren’t. Not exactly. I don’t know how to say it, but they seem kind of fuzzy.”

  “You didn’t tell me about them?” Drago frowned.

  “They’re not on the charts. The last thing you need is a navigator who’s seeing things that aren’t there.”

  Drago’s raised eyebrow showed agreement with that. “So how come you, Most Princess of Longknifes, are asking about what my Sulwan doesn’t want to talk about?”

  “Last year, when my job was kind of boring . . .” Kris started.

  “You in a boring job,” Sulwan said, failing to suppress her feigned shock.

  “It only lasted a few seconds,” Jack said, dryly. “Less than a minute.”

  “May I go on?” Kris asked. They nodded. “My old friend, Trudy Seyd, retired Chief of Wardhaven’s Info Warfare, asked if I’d help with an experiment. She slipped a piece of rock from Santa Maria into my personal computer’s self-organizing matrix, and added software to protect her while she tested this rock.”

  “Rock?” Captain Drago said.

  “It was from the Northern Range of Santa Maria. The ones Grampa Ray blew away. Anyway, the folks doing research on Santa Maria thought those mountains had been nanotech-modified for data storage by the computer the Three put in charge of that planet.”

  “We don’t hear much about the Three species who some say built the jump points a couple of million years ago and then went away,” Sulwan said. “Unless we stop at Santa Maria. They’ve got festival days there about the Three. I was there once.”

  “I still think the jump points are natural,” Captain Drago said. “I don’t like the idea of trusting my ship to some highway other species built while we were still throwing rocks.”

  “Lots of people share your view,” Kris agreed, and let it hang there.

  “But?” Drago went on.

  “Nelly has been finagling that rock, and she thinks she has found star charts. Charts with more jump points on them than my Great-grampa Ray saw when he was still able to see stuff on Santa Maria and drew up the star charts we use today.”

  “You bet I have. And you have seen them, too, in your dreams, Kris.”

  “Yes, I have, Nelly,” Kris agreed. The others were staring at Kris’s collar bone, where Nelly rested comfortably.

  “Are you sure these are jump points?” Captain Drago asked.

  “They appear to be. The charts seem to show stars we’ve identified and connections between them. At least one connection for each point.”

  “But why do these look different?” Drago asked, his bushy brows coming down, nuzzling each other like two caterpillars that couldn’t decide whether to fight or be friends.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Kris said. “Possibly, they built most of the jump point net, the part we know about, using one technology. Maybe these points used a new technology and were built after Santa Maria U was closed down.”

  “And you want me to risk my ship on those ‘maybe’s’?”

  “You got it in one,” Jack said. “Don’t you love working for this young optimist?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Drago said, rubbing his chin.

  “It would be interesting, giving those jump points a look,” Sulwan said. “And we have the jump buoys already aboard. We could send one through first. Us later.”

  “You want to do this!”

  “Why not, Skipper? How often does anyone get a chance to open up a chunk of sky? Who knows? Maybe this is the hole the Three crawled in and pulled the road up behind them.”

  Jack shook his head. “And Kris, here, wants to stick her head in the lion’s mouth and count its teeth.”

  Captain Drago raised an eyebrow, then seemed to make a decision. “I’ll need to bring aboard more food and supplies. Nine tomorrow morning soon enough?”

  “Sounds fine, Captain.” That would leave Kris time to explain to Penny why she again had Kris’s command. Kris told her over salads at the New Chicago Pizza Place.

  “I wondered what you’d do about Ron asking you to make yourself scarce,” Penny said, biting into a small tomato. “I learned you were leaving from Chief Beni when he came back, waving a check fit to choke a horse. Remind me to go out with you next time you go hunting.”

  “We captured the ship. I paid fair market value and . . .” Kris said, unsure if she should tell Penny where she was off to.

  “If that admiral at Wardhaven had surrendered his ship, would we have sold it and split the profits?” Penny asked, her voice distant.

  “The engineer was supposed to blow up the Wasp. I think the battleships had the same orders. It was really a waste of time for me to offer them a chance to haul down their colors.”

  “And while you talked, that SOB targeted the 109,” Penny said in a barely audible whisper.

  And Tommy died under that fire.

  There. It was out. Kris had tried for something that wasn’t even there, and it had cost her best friend his life. Or it would have cost Penny her life if Tommy hadn’t knocked her out of the way . . . and died for it.

  Their eyes locked. But today Penny didn’t flee the room. There wasn’t even a tear tracing its way down her cheek. I guess she’s getting better. Maybe I should be, too, Kris thought.

  Three of the old vets came in, waved at Penny, saw who she was with and took another table. Penny w
aved back. She did use the napkin to daub at her left eye. “You know, Kris, you ought to hang around here a bit. These are good people. I’ve been working on the Patton with a whole batch of them. End up eating most of my meals with them.”

  “They talk a lot?”

  “They listen a lot. Really good listeners. Most of them lost buddies, lovers in the war. Eighty years later, they still remember them. They still hurt, but the pain’s scarred over. I’m starting to think there’s hope for me.”

  Kris glanced out at the crowd in the place. It was filling up, but they had a quiet corner in the back and, though everyone who came in seemed to have a smile and a wave for Penny, none moved into their private space.

  “I hear you’ve taken to shooting first even if you can’t ask questions later,” Penny said, then filled her mouth and leaned forward to chew . . . and listen.

  “That word all over the place?”

  “Judge Maydell was working with me this afternoon. She says it looks like you made the hard call for the right reason, but she’s wondering if it was only for the right reasons. She thinks your combat vita is way too full for someone our age.”

  “She have any idea how I avoid getting shot at next time?”

  Penny shook her head, and kept chewing.

  Kris gazed up at the ceiling. “If I got a sleepy dart into her cheek, would it have done the job? Or would the dart have just broken her jaw on the way into her brain? If I hit her eye, she’d be just as dead as she ended up. And if I planted a few darts in her scalp, would they have put her to sleep or just aggravated her?” Penny nodded along.

  “They were armed and dangerous. She wouldn’t freeze, but went for her gun. The ones we captured said they intended to take over the Resolute. I was reading the situation correctly.”

  “But,” Penny said.

  Kris tried to ignore the “but.” Still, it hung in the air.