Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting Page 12

  “And give good foot massages,” two of the older women put in, to which two of the older men gave long-suffering nods of agreement.

  Kris took her seat at the head of the table but held up a hand to postpone further chatter. “I do have one question of my own before you start answering questions I don’t even know to ask,” she said into the silence. Well, near silence, the youngest gal seemed to have a case of the giggles at the idea of being asked a question by the famous, or infamous, Kris Longknife, battle admiral et al.

  “And what might that be?” one of her older cousins asked.

  “How did I get demoted to ‘honey child’? Am I going to have to put up with that kind of stuff for nine months from Granny Rita?” Kris asked.

  “Yep,” “Pretty much,” and “Get used to it,” answered the question. “Even I,” one of the older women said, “get ‘demoted’ every time I get pregnant to girl-child so-called endearments for the whole nine months.”

  “Does she baby talk the kid?” Kris asked.

  “No, she treats the newborn tiny ones just like they’re uniform tall,” the other older cousin said. “I don’t get it either: baby talk to us moms, but straight talk for the toothless young’uns.”

  Kris shrugged. “So I better get used to being everyone else’s Viceroy but Granny Rita’s honey child.”

  “Or baby cheeks,”

  “Or worse,” the youngest tossed in. “Suddenly, I’m honey bear pumpkin. What’s a pumpkin?”

  The look on the young woman’s face was such a delight that everyone laughed, even her, after a perfectly timed pause.

  With that, Kris began to get from five of Granny Rita’s great-great-granddaughters and one great-great-great-granddaughter, Alanda, the straight dope on impending motherhood. As soon as Alanda got her own question in.

  “You look awful young to be just a great-granddaughter,” Alanda gushed. “My great-granny is a great-granddaughter of the commodore.”

  “When you’ve got a filled-up world, Alanda,” one of the gals on her fourth birth pointed out, “people are a lot slower to have kids. We’re lucky.”

  Kris allowed that Alanda was lucky while doubting Mother would agree.

  What Kris discovered over the next two hours was . . . confusing. Take morning sickness. Please. Just take it somewhere far away from Kris.

  “I’m on my fourth pregnancy. I’ve got four kids, and I’ve never been sick one morning,” one said.

  “Thank your lucky stars, Belinda. I was sick every day for nine months with my first. At least this second one is letting me have some decent mornings since I started my third trimester.”

  Granny Rita might have intended to help Kris, but the conclusion she arrived at as dessert was served was that every pregnancy was a voyage of discovery for mom and tadpole. What would come, would come, and you just better enjoy the ride.

  That was what Kris shared with Jack as she lay in his arms much later.

  “That was what the guys basically told me, too. Stay close. Don’t get scared by it all and run away, and most of all, love you no matter what kind of mood you’re in.”

  “Mood I’m in, huh?”

  “Their words, not mine,” Jack assured her, hand held up in surrender.

  Kris sighed. “I don’t want to agree that Admiral Yi can be right about the time of day, must less about the moodiness of pregnant women, but Jack, I may need your help if I start to, ah, I don’t know. Let my hormones affect my command decisions.”

  “That’s a mighty tall order,” Jack said.

  “I know. I’m asking you to tell me when I’m around the bend and don’t realize it. Right?”

  “It sounds that way to me.”

  “Well, try to help me on that, will you?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Then kiss me, and hug me, and let’s see if we can go to sleep or someplace else again.”

  “Hmm,” Jack said as he kissed her.

  25

  “Are you awake, dear?” from Jack woke Kris next morning.

  Without opening her eyes, she took stock of her situation. She was snuggled warmly under a thin blanket, but she could feel a cool morning breeze playing on her face. What she couldn’t feel was Jack in bed beside her.

  She checked her tummy. It was unhappy but not yet in full revolt.

  “Do I have to wake up?” Kris asked.

  “No, but the milk might get warm. Nelly can’t make a refrigerator out of the wood of this bungalow.”

  Kris risked opening one eye. Jack was standing across the bed from her, a tall glass of milk in one hand and one of her favorite sticky buns in the other.

  “I might be willing to face the morning,” Kris admitted, risking reaching for the milk. She took several swallows; her tummy seemed more content with its fate. Jack broke off a bit of roll and handed it across to her. She tasted it.

  “This is different.”

  “What with a herd of future moms here, the cook made up a batch of buns with less refined flour and more natural folic acid.”

  “You mean the cook has nice buns in the oven, huh,” Nelly said.

  “Bad joke, Nelly,” Kris said.

  “But a good one,” Jack added.

  “Bad enough to be good,” Nelly observed. “No wonder you humans go crazy so easily. You live halfway there already.”

  “Another good one,” Jack said.

  “Don’t push me,” Kris grumbled, but was starting to feel more human. Jack handed her more bits of her breakfast, and she washed each bite down with more milk.

  “You don’t look green,” Jack said, hopefully.

  “I don’t feel all top o’ the morning either,” Kris mumbled back.

  “I’ll get you another bun,” Jack said. The one he returned with was less sticky but had nuts and raisins on it. Kris allowed that he was earning extra husband points for remembering what breakfast buns she liked. He allowed that he hoped to be rewarded for it in the not-so-distant future.

  “I wouldn’t bet money on that,” Kris said, but found herself almost smiling. She did feel nearly human.

  Kid, you better have a lot of nice smiles for your mommy. I’m putting up with a lot while you’re my involuntary passenger. But Kris found herself smiling as she thought it.

  Jack invited Kris to the beach. He collected several towels and other gear. Kris found all she had to do was carry herself. Herself and the sunny-side ups on her chest that were suddenly painful.

  Kris found a bra and put it on. It seemed ridiculous to walk around wearing only a bra, so she scrounged up a string bottom and added it to her ensemble.

  At the water’s edge, she found Jack laid out on a towel, another one spread out beside him. He glanced up.

  “Yes, I know I’m overdressed. But suddenly I’ve got two very touchy girls. Don’t even look at them too hard. They hurt.”

  “The guys warned me that the view might be great but it could be ‘look but don’t touch’ at times.”

  “Today’s one of them,” Kris said as she settled on the towel beside him.

  The sun was barely up. The morning mist was cool. Kris closed her eyes and listened to the lapping of the water, the calls of the birds.

  “On mornings like this, it’s hard to believe that anyone would want to destroy it all.”

  “Fear can do that to people.”

  “Yes,” Kris sighed.

  For a long time, she just lay there, enjoying being alive.

  “Do you feel like you’re going to be a daddy?” she finally said to break the silence.

  “Why? Aren’t you feeling like you’re going to be a mommy?”

  Kris winced. “Every morning I can’t help but feel all mommy-to-be. No, that’s not right. Every morning, I feel sick. Like I ate something I wish I hadn’t. That is not the same as feeling in my bones that I’ll be the mother of some cute new life eight months from now. Different thing entirely.”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  Water lapped their feet. Somewhere, a bird s
kimmed the water and splashed as it caught a fish. Kris listened to the flapping of its wings as it climbed up. She opened her eyes in time to see it settle on a treetop nest, call its delight, and begin feasting on its catch.

  Kris blinked as the thought took her. She’d just watched something die so that something else could live. Even here, in her private paradise, there was death.

  Death so that life could continue.

  Different from death so that senseless fears could be placated.

  She shook herself; she didn’t want to think about that today.

  Jack reached across to take her hand. “Something wrong?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know,” Kris said in rapid succession. She sighed and began again. “I want to think about what it means to have this surprise on board. What it means for you and me. Instead, I see a bird catch a fish, and I’m thinking about bug-eyed monsters who want to kill everything.”

  Jack nodded but said nothing. For a long time, Kris listened to the ocean, trying not to think that something as eternal as the sea might be emptied into space to satisfy some ancient fear. The sun warmed her. The birds continued their song.

  Kris held on to the moment with her fingernails and willed everything else to go away.

  She heard Jack moving beside her but did not open her eyes. He began to massage her right foot.

  “I’ll give you thirty minutes to stop that,” Kris said.

  “Forty-five,” Jack countered.

  Kris smiled. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the concept of negotiations, love.”

  “I think your concept of ‘stop’ needs some analysis,” came right back at her, but with too much of a laugh in it to be called snappish.

  “Oh”— Kris sighed—“just keep that up.”

  “Most definitely.”

  Kris luxuriated in a human’s touch. Jack’s touch. Her husband’s touch. The father of her child’s touch. Deep breaths came in and deep sighs went out in time with his gentle rubbing of her feet, playful strokes up her ankles.

  “Will I be a good mother?” Kris found herself asking. Not sure who she was asking even as the words came out.

  Jack seemed to mull the question over for a bit. Not too long. Not too short. “Are you a good naval officer?”

  “I like to think I am. I try.”

  “Are you a good fighting captain?”

  “The king seems to think so.”

  “I’d say several billion aliens are dead proof of that,” Jack quipped.

  “You have a point. You do have a point,” she said, suggestively.

  “You don’t get that until I get a few answers,” Jack tried to make it sound like a grumble, but there was way too much smile behind it.

  “But I asked the first question. What do you mean, you want answers?” Kris said.

  “You give me my answers, then I’ll give you yours. Fair trade.”

  “It seems out of step. Ooh, right there, do it some more,” Kris said, losing any thoughts to the feel of Jack’s strong hands working the kinks out of her feet.

  “Can you think of anything that you’ve set your mind to that you’ve been bad at?” Jack said, but his hands went back to the arch of her left foot and did that thing he did.

  “I got relieved of my first command,” Kris pointed out.

  “You know as well as I that the whole screwup was a political move against your dad. And you went right back, took command of the whole shebang, and blew away six battleships with a splinter fleet.”

  “And got a lot of people killed,” Kris added.

  “And saved a planet,” Jack insisted on pointing out.

  “Okay, I can’t think of anything that I really have done poorly,” Kris admitted. “Even when the dice are loaded, I seem to pull a boxcar out of them.”

  “That’s my gal,” Jack said, and spent a full minute on Kris’s left ankle.

  “So you say I’ll be a good mother if I only set my mind to it.”

  “No doubt in my mind.”

  “But what if everything else I have to do gets in the way?” Kris almost broke into a scream, the fear wanted out so badly.

  “How many hats do you wear?” Jack said. “Assuming you wear anything at all.”

  Kris liked the sound of that, and the quick trip his fingers made up her leg to the soft flesh of her thighs.

  “Hmm, I like that.”

  “Answer my question.” Jack was counting her toes as if playing with piggies going to market.

  “Okay, okay, I wear three hats. And I assume you asked because you think I can wear four just as easily.”

  “You’ve juggled three hats very nicely. Yes, I assume that you can add a fourth and do it with just as much panache. You going to tell me why I’m wrong?”

  Kris found her hands involuntarily coming up to rub her eyes. “I don’t know. I guess so. I want to be a good mother. Heaven knows, I’ve seen enough bad ones. I don’t remember any that I really would want to be like.”

  “Gramma Trouble?” Jack said.

  “All I’ve ever known her as was Gramma,” Kris pointed out. “I guess her kids turned out okay, but they weren’t in my circle of friends. And before you say Granny Rita, remember, I’ve never known her as mother either, and Grampa Al is not a good recommendation for her mothering skill set.”

  “But what about the gals we had supper with last night?”

  Kris sighed. “Good point. So, are you suggesting we raise our kids on this side of the galaxy?”

  “Did I hear kids? Are you carrying twins?”

  “I don’t know. Isn’t it too early to tell? And besides, this little one is going to have a brother or sister to boss around just like Brother did me.”

  “No only child?”

  “Yep.”

  “So you’re already thinking of how you’ll be a good mother, huh?”

  “Point, set, and match. Okay, husband, and daddy, I’ll do my best and you’ll do your best and I’m sure we can corral several other folks on the Wasp to help us all do our best.”

  “And if not, we can send home to Wardhaven for the best nannies in the business.”

  “Oh Lord, should I tell Phil to bring some nannies back with him? Good God, they don’t even know we’re married, and we’re asking for nannies.”

  “That’s sure to get the word out.”

  “Speaking of out, isn’t it about time for you to drop in and visit baby?” Kris cooed.

  “Is the best mommy this side of the galaxy inviting me in?”

  “The best mommy in the galaxy desperately wants you in.”

  Jack’s fingers began to gently explore the soft flesh of her thighs and pass beyond. Kris felt her passion kindling into flame.

  She heard the shot, a large-caliber round from the sound, just as it plowed in a few inches beyond her shoulder, showering sand in her face.

  26

  “What the . . .” Jack snapped, but Kris was already rolling away from the shooter’s direction. In a second, she balled herself up and shot to her feet, racing for the cottage.

  The second round missed, but she could feel its hot passage on her back.

  She zigged away from the direction the fire seemed to be coming from, counted off the time it would take to work the bolt of one of the new hunting rifles they’d issued to both hunters and the home guard, then zagged.

  Again, the shot missed.

  “Damn this sand,” she muttered as she zigged.

  Jack was up with her now, staying on the shooter’s side. Long ago, he’d sworn to take a bullet for her. Now he was putting his body between her and whoever this whack job was.

  Kris zagged. Jack was a bit slow to follow her.

  “Damn,” he muttered,

  “Damn why?” Kris said, again zigging.

  “It’s just a flesh wound. Keep running. You can kiss it and make it well when we’re in the cottage.”

  Kris didn’t zag when the time came, but crouched low and kept running.

  This time the bullet went ove
r her head . . . by a couple of millimeters.

  “Talk about parting your hair,” Kris muttered, and slammed into the door of the bungalow.

  Its latch gave way, splintering, and she and Jack were inside.

  “Where’s a med kit?” Kris demanded.

  “There isn’t one,” Jack shot back. “Get down and into your spider silks,” he ordered.

  “You too,” Kris ordered back.

  “After I teach that bastard to keep down,” Jack said. He had his service automatic out of the closet and went to crouch next to the nearest window. Aiming high, he snapped off four rounds as fast as he could work the trigger, then dropped and rolled over to the door.

  Three quick rounds splintered the wall below the windowsill.

  Jack stepped back, into the shadow behind the wide-open door, and put another four rounds downrange. Then he rolled back as two more shots answered him.

  “He’ll have to reload. The magazine on those .30 caliber rifles we’re making only holds five rounds. But they’ve got stripper clips to reload fast.”

  Kris finished pulling on her spider-silk bodysuit. It took her only a second to retrieve her own automatic from the back of her uniform pants. Automatically, she checked her load, switching from sleepy darts to kill-you rounds without a thought.

  She came up beside Jack. “I’ll cover while you get in your spider silks. You’re wrong, that ‘graze’ on your shoulder is bleeding bad.”

  “You’ll still kiss it, won’t you?” he said with one of his lopsided grins, but he said it as he went to dig body armor out of his side of the closet.

  Kris grabbed Nelly from where she’d left her in a bowl, both to keep sand out of her computer and to let herself have a few uninterrupted minutes with Jack. Staying low and well back in the shadows, she moved across the room to get a look out the other window. She saw the beach with her abandoned towels, water, and beyond that, the headlands that sheltered this bit of paradise from the vicious critters in the ocean deeps.

  Of a shooter, she saw nothing.

  Kris plugged Nelly into her socket at the back of her head.

  “Thank you, Kris, for finally remembering me. Might I inquire as to what is happening?” was pure sarcasm.

  “We’re being shot at,” Kris snapped.