Kris Longknife: Defender Read online

  So, Granny Rita, tell me again exactly what is my place in the chain of command?

  Kris gave Jack’s hand a sad squeeze. If the sorrow on his face was a reflection of hers, they were a pretty sorry lot. It looked like the clock had struck twelve, and Cinderella would have to turn back into a princess and the prince would have to turn back into a Marine captain.

  There were several obscene things Kris would have liked to say; what she did say to Captain Drago was, “Get ready to receive the king. I’ll get back to the fleet landing as fast as I can. What acceleration is the fleet putting on?”

  “One and a half gees. Somebody wants to get here quick. I’m told they’ll arrive in eighteen hours.”

  “Issue a recall as gently as you can. Let’s not scare the natives, heavy or otherwise.”

  “I understand. Prepare for a royal visit. Get the ship shipshape and Bristol fashion.”

  “You know the drill. I’ll have to warn Granny Rita.”

  “You forgot, Nelly put me on your net,” said Granny interrupting. “We’ll talk as soon as you get back into town.”

  “We’ll see you soon, Granny,” Kris said.

  “Damn,” said the old lady for Kris.

  Kris looked at Jack. “The Sakura must have made a fast passage, and Grampa Ray must have left immediately.” She found herself shaking her head.

  At that moment, their meal arrived. Kris gave the waitress a princess-caliber smile, and said, “I’m sorry, we’ll have to be leaving.”

  “But why?” the young woman asked.

  As Kris stood, a glance around told her that those at the table close by had heard an earful they didn’t know how to interpret. Never a good idea.

  Kris cleared her throat and spoke in the voice that made crews snap to, even if it meant dying. “I appreciate the privacy that all of you have afforded Jack and me for the last several days. Many of you recognized me from the interview I gave the Alwan news media. I am Princess Kris Longknife, a lieutenant commander in the Royal United Society Navy and the senior Navy officer present on the research frigate Wasp, above your heads. The good news is that the U.S. has just reinforced its fleet presence in the defense of Alwa with over half a dozen ships. Humanity is not forgetting you, but coming to your defense.”

  Kris paused while the dining room exploded with joyous shouts and applause.

  “Please feel free to pass that information along to any of your friends. I’d appreciate if you could avoid mentioning that it came from a nearly naked princess.”

  “And what’s wrong with being naked, nearly or totally?” a nearly naked woman asked.

  “In some parts of human space, like wherever my mother is at the moment, anything close to naked is frowned upon.” Well, most balls Kris had attended had a few women in gowns that skimped on just about everything, but other than at formal occasions, Mother was quite sure of her dress code.

  The woman who’d raised the question suggested that human space do something that, while Kris would love doing it with Jack, it was probably biologically impossible for a huge area of vacuum to manage.

  When the general laughter died down, Kris held up her hands and got silence.

  “The sad news is that with the fleet arriving, I have to cut my vacation short and go back to being a Navy officer. I’ve enjoyed your company, and I look forward to returning when my schedule allows, but I must leave immediately.”

  Kris and Jack made their way to the door, slowly, shaking many a hand and getting lots of hugs. At the door, the owner waited. “You are welcome here at any time, and your money will never be good so long as I own this place, or my kids. Please come back when you can. We have a truck we use to make trips to town. My son will have it at your cottage in fifteen minutes.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Kris said.

  After another hug, Kris and Jack made their final good-bye and jogged toward their cottage, in step and by cadence.

  Their vacation was vanishing by the second.

  They hastily donned their uniforms. The spider silks were tossed in their bags; there was no time to pull themselves into that tight confinement. Besides, once topside, they’d need to shower and change into clean uniforms. Probably dress uniforms.

  It was the king paying a visit.

  And he very likely wouldn’t care for what he found.

  “Do you think King Raymond expects to haul the entire human colony off this planet? Is that what the huge ships are? Transports?” Jack asked.

  “Transports with a battleship’s broadside?” Kris pointed out.

  “Nothing about this makes sense,” Jack concluded.

  “In some weird way, it does to Ray Longknife,” Kris said.

  They were dressed and packed in ten minutes. Kris glanced at the bed. Could they have taken a few moments for a fast one? Did she want her final memory of this to be something of sweaty haste? Better to go forward without looking back.

  A teenager arrived early. They tossed their gear in the back of the truck and shared the narrow cab with a hero-worshipping young man who wanted to know everything about human space and repeatedly told them he planned to visit there. “But I’ll come back here. There’s no place better to live. Have you ever been to a better resort than Dad’s?”

  Kris allowed that she hadn’t, and had to repeat it several times in the drive back.

  Two hours later, they pulled up to Granny Rita’s home. It was a nice adobe two-story, built around an open garden court with a fountain and pond in the middle. Clearly, it had been meant to house a large family.

  Three teenagers came out to carry their two bags. A mother provided supervision in case any should be needed.

  Kris and Jack said their good-bye to the boy, who told them he wasn’t going anywhere until the truck’s batteries recharged. The mother gave him directions, needed or not, to the nearest recharging station.

  An older couple, likely Granny’s own kid and spouse, hurried them inside and across the plaza. “You must do something,” the man said. “She’s insistent that she go up to the Wasp to meet Raymond. I think another shuttle launch could kill her.”

  “I think she wants to go out that way,” the woman said. “Who can fault her for going? If it kills her, it saves her from having to confront him.”

  The man did not dispute his wife’s opinion.

  “Granny Rita is not getting on any shuttle I control,” Kris said flatly. “I will not have her death on my hands. God knows, I’ve got enough of them on my soul. Hers is not going to be added, and that is that.”

  “You don’t know Granny Rita,” the man said.

  Jack snorted. “You don’t know Kris Longknife.”

  That settled the discussion until they got to Granny Rita’s suite of rooms.

  The old woman was packing several bags. “I don’t know what Raymond will want to do. You say he’s a king. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a ball. Somewhere around here, I have a ball gown.”

  “Mother, you cut it up to make clothes for me and Tina when we were small. I remember you telling us the story. We’ve handed them down, generation to generation.”

  The old woman looked up. “I guess I forgot. Young woman, those pills you gave me don’t seem to be working as well as promised.”

  “You haven’t been taking them as long as you were told,” Kris shot back.

  “Well, however it goes, I must meet Raymond on the Wasp when he arrives.”

  “No, Granny, you will meet Raymond here, on your own turf,” Kris said.

  “I’m going up,” Granny Rita said with all the stubbornness of her years.

  “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, Granny.”

  Granny Rita settled into a chair and eyed Kris. “The easy way is?”

  “You will not be allowed on any shuttle under my command. Last time I checked, they’re all under
my command.”

  “So what happened to Captain Drago being the Wasp’s skipper?” Granny demanded.

  “You eavesdropped on our conversation. You tell me who gives the orders there.”

  “But he’s the captain. So long as you’re in that dotted box, you can still marry Jack. By the way, how’d the vacation go?”

  “Swimmingly. Often without swimming suits as you no doubt expected.”

  “I think two of my kids were conceived there.”

  “Too much information, Granny, and you are dodging the issue.”

  “Okay. How do we do this the hard way?”

  “We’ll have several liberty launches dropping down to pick up the crew. I can put a ship’s surgeon on one. He can give you a thorough physical to qualify you for space. You’ll fail, and then it’s official. Commodore Rita Nuu Longknife-whatever-else is grounded.”

  “And Raymond isn’t grounded.”

  “He’s been through several rejuvenation cycles. Not just some pills but the whole treatment, fix or replace anything as necessary.”

  Rita leaned back in her chair and blew out a disagreeing breath. “You are not giving me the proper respect I deserve.”

  Kris snapped right back. “You mean I should obey your whim and let you commit suicide by shuttle? Forget it. It ain’t gonna happen on my watch, and there is no other watch.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t talk to King Raymond like this,” Granny pouted.

  “Sorry, Granny Rita,” Jack said. “I’ve been stuck in meetings between those two. Subordinate is not Kris’s strong suit. Nowhere close.”

  “If Grampa Ray had had his choice, I never would have been allowed to do the Voyage of Discovery, never would have spotted the alien invasion force, and never broken its back,” Kris said.

  “Tell me something, young whippersnapper to a wise elder, what was the vote to launch eight battleships and four corvettes at that monster?”

  Kris tossed the question to Jack and settled into a chair.

  “Initially,” Jack said, “the admiral from Greenfeld, the Peterwald Empire, was all for collecting his four battleships and going home. Two other admirals from Musashi and the Helvetican Confederacy were willing to go along with Kris if she could come up with a decent plan. She did, and everyone followed it. At least until things came apart.”

  “They always come apart,” Granny said, her voice years and light-years away.

  “Yes, they always come apart,” Kris agreed. “Now, Granny Rita, there is a liberty launch holding at the landing for me and Jack. We have to be going. Feel free to do whatever you want to receive a visiting king, unless you can convince the Alwans to apply for membership in the United Societies, in which case he’ll be their king paying a visit. By the way, Grampa wanted to call his association of planets United Sentients, but his meeting with the Iteeche leaked out, and the name got changed. The Alwans might help him change it back.”

  “The Alwans can’t agree on whether it’s day or night,” Granny Rita’s daughter said.

  “Sadly true,” Granny agreed. “Okay, young lady, shoo. You have your irons in the fire. I’ll see what kind of fire I can light down here. You’re sure he’ll come down?”

  “Absolutely,” Kris said.

  “Then I got a party to plan, fit for a king.”

  Kris was none too sure about the sound of that, but she had her own work cut out for her. She and Jack left. A car waited to hurry them to the fleet landing. They were the last aboard. The liberty launch started its takeoff run as they tightened their seat belts.

  15

  Kris went straight to the bridge as fast as she could bounce off one wall and hit another. She need not have hurried. Captain Drago had nothing new to report.

  “They are squawking the exact minimum required by law,” the skipper said. “Their name, their home port, and that they are U.S. warships.”

  “All of them, even the big ones?” Kris asked.

  “Yes, but who would put just twenty guns on a battlewagon that huge. Oh, they also have 5-inch secondaries. Our gravity anomaly detector says those huge ships are heavy, but no masses like thick armor. Kris, these ships don’t make any sense.”

  “So they’re something new. Jack wondered if they were transports to take the entire colony home. Could they do that?”

  “Not empty enough,” Senior Chief Beni said, shaking his head. “There’s a lot of heavy stuff inside those ships, but it’s not where an armored belt belongs.”

  The bridge crew looked around at each other, but Kris only saw faces as blank as hers.

  “Captain, does your Navy experience include anything like this?” Kris asked.

  “No, but I asked Cookie what he thought. He said, back in the day when he was a boot ensign, General Longknife’s flag came into a system, just as silent as this. No signal at all. The local admiral and every commanding officer pushed the panic button. Said it was something like a no-notice showdown inspection. Every elephant was running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to make everything perfect.”

  “An interesting mix of metaphors,” Kris said. “What happened?”

  “The sector admiral ended up sacked, as well as the admirals commanding the Navy base and Navy yard. Several squadron and division commanders found themselves on the beach along with quite a few captains.”

  Kris considered that for a long minute. Then shook her head. “We’ve got no admirals to sack and we’ve already been booted about as far as we can go and still be in the same galaxy. No. Something else is going on.”

  She thought for a long moment as the bridge stayed silent. “Prosperity. What kind of a name is that for a warship?”

  “There have been a few of them,” Nelly said. “Usually small auxiliaries.”

  “Are you sure the Enterprise isn’t the Free Enterprise?” Kris asked slowly.

  “You think your Grampa Al has something to do with those two?” Jack asked.

  “Call it a hunch, but Prosperity and Canopus just don’t seem cut from the same cloth.”

  “There have been several repair and depot ships named Canopus,” Nelly put in.

  “And Princess Royal,” Kris said. “What kind of name is that?”

  “The Royal Navy,” Nelly said, “I mean the British wet royal navy had a battlecruiser named Princess Royal at one of the greatest sea battles in history.”

  Kris still scowled, but Jack was grinning.

  “It would honor one of the fightingest captains in a long time,” he said.

  Yesterday, Kris would have thrown him a kiss for that kind reflection of her. Maybe a lot more than a kiss. Today, she settled for a smile.

  And turned her thoughts back to her problem. She needed more information. The ships were not talking.

  “Nelly,” Kris said, “have you tried to contact those ships on Nelly Net?”

  “No, Kris, all my kids are here.”

  “All but Katsu-san’s Fumio-san.”

  “He was on the Sakura,” Nelly said.

  “Question, did it head back to Musashi direct or stop off at Wardhaven?”

  “Wardhaven’s closer than Musashi,” Captain Drago said.

  “Nelly, send to Katsu-san, ‘Ohio, Katsu-san. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu. Did you help design these ships? The new large frigates look just like the fast and heavily armed war wagons I’d want in a fight. The big ones like the Prosperity are a bit too big, don’t you think?’ Send that Nelly to Fumio-san and let’s cross our fingers.”

  Nelly started a timer. It looked like it would take a while for the message to get there and more for a reply to get back. Frustrated, Kris headed for her quarters for a shower and a change of uniform.

  Abby arrived on the second liberty launch, fussing about having a good night’s sleep interrupted. Cara was none too happy. She’d found kids her own age delighted t
o find out what computer games were and someone willing to share with them.

  Kris considered the joy of sharing a shower with Jack and, in her lone frustration, scrubbed herself pink. Abby had her dress whites, complete with orders and medals laid out. Getting dressed in zero gee was no fun, but Kris got herself fully and properly uniformed before heading back to the bridge, just as the timer was coming up on an hour.

  “Nothing, so far,” Captain Drago reported.

  Kris settled at her station at Weapons and put her feet in loops so that she could stand if she needed to talk to the engineer from Musashi.

  The main screen continued to show the stars above, the green-and-blue planet below. A third liberty launch was on approach while the first back was already dropping down for another load of disappointed Sailors.

  Then a portion of the main screen changed to the cheerful face of Kikuchi Katsu, the senior engineer of Mitsubishi Heavy Space Industry and designer of the Wasp.

  “I am so glad to see you again, Princess-san. We hurried here as quickly as we could. The Sakura broke its long journey at Wardhaven to give your King Raymond the joyous news that his wife still lives.”

  Kris would not have wanted to be a mouse in that room.

  “But your brother had already done so much to get frigates under construction at Nuu Docks. First the Intrepid and Fearless, only a bit bigger than your Wasp. But they were also working on something to take the new 20-inch guns that several planets of your United Society had been testing but saw no reason to build. Believe me, now they do, and the other four ships are larger frigates with six 20-inchers forward and four aft.

  “Your honorable brother persuaded my most honorable father and your most honorable grandfather to take the question of our competing patents to arbitration. Your king and your most honorable grandfather agreed to merge the two big frigates building in each of the three large battleship slips. I added more to them and turned two of them into the Prosperity class armed transports. I can make them back into two large frigates each, but they are also loaded with mining and factory equipment and people to run them. You will have both warships, freighters, and lunar factories when I am done. Also, the Canopus will be a space station for Alwa until the moon base sends up enough material to make a normal station. Then it, too, will become frigates and ships for mining.”