Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting Read online

  “So, this will be a body birth,” Kris said with finality. “How do we make this a safe journey? Doc, do you plan to beach every one of us seventy-one?”

  Dr. Meade returned Kris a puzzled look. “Your Granny Rita spent the first six months of Alnaba’s gestation walking the bridge of her battlecruiser. She called to make sure I knew that.”

  “She knows already!” Jack said.

  “I suspect she knew the night we started this bit of fun,” Kris said, patting her belly.

  “She told me great-grandmothers have a way of knowing,” the doc said, “the old liar. Anyway, we have better ways today to harden our ships against the background radiation of space than back then. Sailors rarely get cancer. What we don’t have is the ice cladding of the old battlecruisers. Two meters thick will stop a lot of high-energy heavy particles. I’m thinking of reassigning my ladies-in-waiting to two or three ships and having them given an old-fashioned ice cladding. I’ve already talked to Captain Drago, and he’s game. He’s kind of excited, what with his new reactors, new lasers and all the rest.”

  Kris didn’t doubt that the old sea dog was delighted with the new Wasp. Of course, if she loaded it down with several thousand tons of ice, it might wallow a bit, but it wouldn’t likely be any worse than the recent Wasp with two Hellburners aboard or the older Wasp expanded to handle containers for five hundred Marines and scientists.

  “We’ll tackle that problem tomorrow,” Kris said. “Now, what about the guy who put the bum implants in my arm?”

  “As I told you,” Doc Meade said, “I’m old-fashioned. It just seems to me that a woman should have a woman installing her birth-control implants. It avoids some male coming up with bad jokes at moments like those.”

  “A guy wouldn’t do that,” Jack said.

  “You’d be amazed at some of the off-colored jokes I’ve heard,” the doc answered back.

  Jack retreated into silence.

  “Well, whether I’m sexist or not,” the doc continued, “my policy seems to have given us a clear red light where you’re concerned. That and the logistics of how this all is possible. Rudo, come in here for a moment, will you?”

  A young woman nurse came in. Her white nursing togs were striking against her ebony skin. Kris hadn’t met many people who still showed such strong evidence of roots to Earth’s old Africa.

  “Tell this nice future mother what you found out about the other misused implants.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Good afternoon, Admiral,” she said, giving Kris her full Navy due even if the doc was reluctant to. “This is one of the packets the birth-control implants come in,” she said, holding up a clear plastic container. Kris could distinctly see the three strips inside.

  “The packet has a number on it that matches the number on the first strip. Each of the three strips has its own number, in sequence, from the first to the last, although sometimes the loading process back at the factory gets the strips out of order. Still, they’re supposed to be one, two, three, or nine, zero, one. You get the idea?”

  Kris nodded.

  The woman sighed. “Good practice requires that the nurse check each strip to make sure the numbers match.”

  Rudo paused for a moment. “I’m sad to report that good practices have not been followed. Nurses always check the first one. Many check the second strip. When questioned over the last few days, everyone I talked to admitted to not bothering to check the third one. It didn’t seem like a problem,” came out with a bitter twist.

  “Every one of the pregnant women presented with two effective strips and a third that had been issued three years ago, removed and, somehow made its way back into a new-issue packet.”

  “Someone knew about the actual practice and took advantage of it,” Kris said.

  “Yep. But that someone also had to have access to the expended ones on their way to disposal as well as the new packets. He’d need to check the packets out, take them to someplace safe and carefully remove the third strip, replace it, and reseal the packet so that no one would notice it had been tampered with,” Doc Meade said, temper growing with each word.

  “I’m guessing there aren’t many men who meet that requirement,” Kris said. “I’m also guessing that he wasn’t really risking much when he took the chance of installing my implants.”

  Doc Meade’s scowl was dark. “We could have caught him. We didn’t.”

  “That’s water under the bridge,” Kris said. “However, has everyone who got shortchanged on her newly issued implants gotten pregnant?”

  “No. We’re running every woman who got new implants through sick bay. It seems that over half of those with one bum implant have not gotten pregnant. It was just the luck of the draw it seems.”

  “But not for me.”

  “No. He made sure that you were totally unprotected.”

  “You’re seeing that those women get effective implants.” The doctor nodded. “Good. I’ve taken care of my responsibilities as the fleet’s admiral. Now, I want to meet this man. Do you have him in custody?”

  “The Marines have him in a lockdown on the station,” the doc said. “Chief Warrant Officer Mugeridge serves in the Naval Supply Corp. He was trained as a nurse but went into supply when his knees went out and he couldn’t stand eight straight. We thought we were being nice to him. By the way, he came out on the Constellation with Lieutenant Commander Sampson. They go way back. He paid her quite a few visits while she was recuperating from that brain surgery. Right about the time he was hatching this plan.”

  Kris groaned. “I should have sent the Conny back with the king. Her skipper has been just one problem after another, and now this.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” Jack drawled.

  “Good deeds had nothing to do with it,” Kris said. “I lusted for another ship with 20-inch lasers. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Shall we go stationside and see what this bastard has to say for himself?” Jack asked.

  “Hell, yes,” Kris said, then rethought herself. “Will there be a court-martial? Do I need to avoid any appearance of command intervention?”

  Doc Meade shrugged. “I was planning one, but it doesn’t have to come to that. I could just terminate his warrant and send him dirtside. I suspect he’d have a hard time finding a job down there. Most likely, he’d end up shoveling bird guano in the mines right beside his good friend Sampson. We could do it with a court-martial or the other way. Either way, he ends up the same place.”

  “Fill out the paperwork to terminate his warrant,” Kris snapped. “Jack, let’s go talk to this ass.”

  20

  Kris and Jack were quick marching for the detention center on Cannopus Station when they came to a roaring halt.

  “Hi, honey child. When you going to bring that baby to see Granny?”

  At “honey child,” Kris froze. Nobody talked to her like that. Fortunately, “granny” got added before Kris exploded.

  “Granny Rita?” Kris said, turning to see her great-grandmother hurrying to catch up with her. “What are you doing on my station?” Kris would tackle that life-and-death issue before she tried to get a handle on this sudden twist in Granny Rita’s attitude toward her Viceroy.

  “I caught one of your shuttles,” the old lady said, beaming proudly.

  “Didn’t I tell you that you were grounded? No shuttle-assisted suicide,” Kris pointed out, all the time noting that granny looked rather well.

  “You didn’t actually send me for a flight physical, so I am not officially carried in the log as grounded”—the old gal grinned even wider—“and I am not anywhere near to dead, just in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “You are looking surprisingly well,” Jack said. “Last time you were fresh out of a shuttle, there was a distinct green to your gills.”

  “I don’t have gills. I’m not an Iteeche,” the old Iteeche fighter snapped. “That rejuvenation clinic dirtside has been doing wonders for us old codgers. I suspect I’ll be ready to fly my own
shuttle up here about the time that baby makes her bawling appearance. Maybe change the first diaper myself.”

  “Nelly, see that Granny’s authorization to operate shuttles is canceled and logged.”

  “Krr-i-sss,” sounded like Nelly really was pained, caught in the bite of the line between two Longknifes.

  “Jack, you log the change and see to it that one of your sergeants walks the change through the system.”

  “Yes, my love,” made it clear that it was the husband obeying, not the Marine major general.

  “Oh, bother,” Kris snapped. “Granny, promise me and my baby that you will not try honking a shuttle around in space, no matter how frisky you feel after a rejuvenation session.”

  “For that great-great-grandkid of mine, I’ll promise. Not for you, miss prissy pants, but for that little one I want to see married off to a man as fine as her dad.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said.

  “Now, where are you two off to like a herd of turtles?” Granny Rita demanded.

  “To have a few choice words with the guy who sabotaged my birth-control implants,” Kris said.

  “While I can’t complain about the results, I do have a few quibbles with a Sailor that doesn’t do his job,” the old commodore said through a stormy frown. “Lead on, McDuffy, and damned be he who gets in my way.”

  So it was that three of them charged into Cannopus Station’s brig. A gunny pointed them at a door, not a word said.

  Jack opened it, and two very angry ladies stormed in to face a man cuffed to a table.

  Mugeridge apparently had been rousted out early that morning; he had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. He also hadn’t been given a lot of time to dress; he looked to be in yesterday’s uniform. His shirt was unevenly buttoned. He looked a mess, but, to Kris’s minor surprise, the Marines had not used undue force.

  “You,” he spat. “I should have known a whore like you couldn’t pass up the chance to gloat. A knocked-up whore, no less.”

  “Since my husband knocked me up, I don’t think that word applies.”

  “You turned this whole fleet into one big whorehouse.”

  “As your friend Sampson told me every chance she got.”

  “It’s true. Here we are out in the middle of nowhere, bug-eyed monsters all around, and you let discipline go to hell with everyone sleeping around.”

  Kris knew this train wreck was not going anywhere good, but she couldn’t look away or keep her mouth shut.

  “So you took it upon yourself to render the women of this command less than combat-ready.”

  “Somebody had to do something. No one will follow a knocked-up admiral. You’ll have to surrender your command to someone who knows how to fight a fleet.”

  “In case you didn’t notice, Mugeridge, my command has blown away three of those monstrous mother ships. We must have killed close to two hundred billion of them. I know very well how to command a fighting fleet.”

  “Whore,” was his answer.

  Kris had had enough, but she had a cruel streak in her. Instead of turning on her heels, she stayed to tell him his fate. “Warrant, your services are no longer required by this fleet. Effective immediately, you are out of a job. Sergeant.”

  Kris didn’t have to raise her voice. Gunny had followed her into the confinement cell although she had kept well out of the way.

  “Ma’am.”

  “See that this man is on the next shuttle down. You will remove his manacles when he is dirtside and send him on his way.”

  “Yes, Admiral Longknife.”

  Mugeridge blinked several times, not following where this was leading.

  “Dirtside, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Good luck finding a job,” Kris said, knowing her smile was pure evil.

  “You ain’t gonna have no such luck in my town, sonny boy,” Granny Rita put in.

  “What do you mean?” the former Navy warrant got out, real fear finally replacing the smug gloat he’d had for his pregnant admiral since she stormed in.

  “What I mean is that no farmer has a job for you,” Granny Rita snapped. “No Alwan will have one for you, either, not when the word gets out what you did here, asshole. Your next meal will be a long time coming.”

  He swallowed hard, dawn coming up like thunder. “You can’t let me starve.”

  “I would,” Granny said. “I’ve let bad apples like you starve in my day, but my kid here is too kindhearted. No, she’s got a job for you.”

  “A job?” didn’t sound too happy.

  “Yep,” Kris said. “Right beside your old buddy Sampson, shoveling bird shit.”

  “You can’t do that to me.”

  “I can and already have,” Kris said. “Gunny, this man is yours to transport.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  Then Mugeridge lost it. The stream of invectives and downright nasty words started low and got louder by the second.

  “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you,” Gunny growled.

  He kept right on going, now screaming. His language ended with a whoof as Gunny buried her fist in his stomach just about the time Jack closed the door behind Kris and Granny Rita.

  “I hope that kid just keeps making it harder on himself. I surely do,” Rita said through tight lips.

  “He hasn’t shown much good sense so far,” Kris agreed. They took the elevator down and stepped out onto a crowded A Deck.

  “Hey, I told you I seen that Princess Longknife. There she is.”

  Kris found herself facing a crowd, growing by the second, as there were more shouts of “There she is!” and “She’s got to listen to us.”

  21

  Nelly.

  JACK’S ALREADY ORDERED OUT THE GUARD.

  A man stepped well into Kris’s comfort zone, and shouted, “You got to listen to us. Even a Longknife can’t ignore us.”

  Jack made to shove him back, but Kris rested a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. This crowd looked ugly. Anything might set it off.

  Granny Rita, however, was an elbow of a different gender. The old lady stepped forward, rested a hand on the man’s shoulder, and just kept on walking.

  So the guy took two paces back, giving Kris some breathing room.

  “What do you want to talk to me about?” she said, in her most reasonable voice.

  “You got some ships headed back to Wardhaven.”

  “I don’t usually comment on operational security,” Kris said, still reasonable.

  “We know you do,” a woman shouted. “It’s all over the station. A whole fleet’s going back, and not one of us working stiffs got a billet on one.”

  “I don’t know where you heard that rumor. We’ve got three fleets now and every ship in them is staying right here,” Kris said truthfully. The Endeavor and the Hornet weren’t assigned to any fleet.

  “Maybe it ain’t a fleet, but you got ships going,” another man put in.

  Kris had taken the time to check out the crowd. There wasn’t a Sailor among them. Likely not a yard hand. They were merchant sailors and production workers. Many wore shirts with the insignias of one of the six big corporations that were doing the heavy industrial lifting here.

  None had been given a decent briefing about what they were headed into. Not until they ended up in Kris’s lap, and she let them in on the secret that they had signed up for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years on the tip of a spear that might be busted any moment now by a horde of bloodthirsty aliens.

  Nope, they weren’t happy to start with, and the only thing that had keep them from downing tools and striking was the knowledge that they were all, from Kris Longknife down to the least of them, in the same boat.

  Now they’d heard that the case might be different for some, and the herd was angry.

  Kris pitched her voice to carry. “I am ordering two ships back to human space.”

  “Yeah,” “I told you so,” and “Son of a bitch,” seemed to be the general reply.

  “They are carrying some
of the alien people that we have found as well as scientists that I have ordered home to share the results of their study of the aliens and the unique assets of the Alwa system. I am ordering them home with the expectation that they will build a fire under the folks back there to get more stuff out here.”

  “Fat chance,” along with other nastier responses met that.

  “The skipper of both ships intend to bring their ships and most of their crew back here. One skipper even wants to bring his wife and kid.”

  “No way,” was the most repeatable response to that.

  “I want on that ship,” growled the guy who’d first gotten in Kris’s face.

  “Only those I order go on those two ships, and I’m not ordering you to go.”

  “You better,” was backed up by a balled fist in Kris’s face.

  Jack moved forward to involve himself, but someone got there first.

  “Way, way,” an Ostrich shouted as he forced his way to the front of the crowd. As soon as he got there, he bumped chest with the human, knocking him back into those behind him.

  “No way. No way,” he crowed, and was joined by a female of his kind. They were bigger and meaner than their mates. She raised a knee menacingly.

  Humans had seen those legs kick the head off their prey.

  The crowd backed up.

  Now a pair of Roosters were making their way through the crowd. They were young, the male still had his mating plumage, and the smaller female would not normally have risked herself in a crowded public situation, but she was right behind her male.

  “Go way. Go way,” the Rooster crowed. “He one ah uh,” he said, failing to get the human S sound past his beak. Still, he flapped his vestigial wings, putting on quite a display. From the way the female was dunking her head, she was quite impressed.

  The elevator door opened behind Kris, and a dozen Marines deployed in front of their admiral.

  The crowd backed up quite a bit after taking one look at their M-6s with sheathed bayonets.

  “Gunny, have your crew take a knee,” Kris said. Gunny, after giving her one of those glances NCOs give particularly stupid officers, obeyed.