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  It also put the back of his armored dress blues to the gun. When the gun spat a long stream of darts, most of them finished sticking out of his blouse. Still, that had to hurt.

  Someone was going to be black-and-blue tomorrow.

  And grumpy.

  But Kris had her own problems. Gravity was having its inevitable effect. She turned her fall into a tumble to the left, and went for her automatic at the same time.

  And brought her weapon up as the pea brain controlling the auto-gun swept it toward her.

  Kris aimed her automatic at the rock. It kicked in her hand on full auto, full power, armor-piercing magazine.

  Let’s see which of us can take it the longest, Kris thought.

  It was a close run thing.

  Kris felt the impact of darts, starting at her right foot and coming up her leg. It was purely an information dump to the brain. In the heat of battle, pain didn’t arrive—yet.

  She kept her aim on the rock. Sparks flew along with small parts of things. No way to tell what she was hitting. The hologram’s illusion hid whatever damage her slugs were doing.

  She felt the darts hitting her hip, and climbing up her belly. Here, the ceramic slats in her girdle earned their pay.

  Kris let her fire wander, a bit down, a bit up. Maybe if she hit the auto-gun in the right place…?

  Two Marines rushed into the scene, machine pistols held up before their eyes, tracking for the sound of the fire.

  They put long bursts into the auto-gun even as it turned toward them.

  Now Kris had a broadside view of the gun. She aimed for the arming bolt’s slot. Mess that up and it had to do bad things to the gun. Why else were Gunny’s all the time saying you had to keep the slot clean.

  Jack took a few more hits as the auto-gun swept past him.

  Even as Kris fired at the arming bolt, another part of her brain was processing the trajectories of the rounds that didn’t connect with her or Jack’s armor.

  Outside this hologram must be a slaughter.

  The chatter of the gun hicupped. Regained its rhythm, then slowed down to nothing.

  A hush went over the scene.

  Then the lights went out.

  Now Kris heard people screaming, crying, moaning, and weeping throughout the huge ballroom.

  “Somebody’s cut power to the whole show,” Jack said.

  The two Marines showed that they took the business of being ever ready, or was that the Coasties motto. Anyway, they produced lights and a moment later, two beams were searching around the room.

  “Somebody hit the goddamn lights” echoed through the room in a voice only a Gunny Sergeant could manage.

  And there was light.

  Proving that God truly is spelled G-U-N-N-Y.

  The harsh glare of the newly reborn lights showed carnage. Kris, Jack, and the Marines were the only ones who had felt the need to wear armor to an art show. Scores of bleeding people now suffered the full effects of their civilian optimism.

  Across this gory scene, a dozen men and women moved with purpose toward Kris, their machine pistols out.

  If anyone wished to take up arms against Kris now, there would be hell to pay.

  Scattered in with the fallen were other hologram generators, now off.

  Were any of them rigged with auto-guns?

  Kris wasn’t the only one mulling that thought. One or two Marines paused to eye rocks, tree stumps, what have you. As per their training, they eyed the things over weapon sights.

  “Don’t shoot the gear,” Kris said, taking responsibility for several million dollars of equipment that struggling artists would have a hard time explaining to their rental agents why it came back in shot-up pieces.

  Hopefully, she would not have to pay for this good deed.

  “If any of them start shooting, nail ’em,” Gunny added.

  Once at Kris’s side, the Marines formed a wall around their princess. In the distance sirens began to sound. But the bleeding people in the ballroom needed help now. “Any of you have lifesaving gear?” Kris asked.

  Most of the Marines nodded.

  “Gunny, please select your best shooters to stay with me. Detach the rest of your team to help these people.”

  “If you wish it, Your Highness.” The statement clearly reflected what Gunny thought of that idea.

  “Of course she does, Gunny,” Jack drawled as he rolled off the docent. “She’s a Longknife. They always want to take more risks than any sane person would.” Then Jack groaned.

  At the entrance to the ballroom, two Marines rushed in, no weapons out, but instead loaded with medical emergency kits. They immediately fell to, working with the bleeding. “Those Marines from the truck park? The ones Nelly called for?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gunny agreed. And with a nod from him, all but two of the Marines around Kris joined in lifesaving.

  Over the next several minutes, civilians straggled in. Apparently, some owners of the limos parked outside also traveled with medical emergency kits. Several EMTs rushed to where someone was down, either relieving a Marine or starting initial care. Others stood around until a Marine yelled at them, and got them helping where they were needed.

  “Jack, you okay?” Kris asked.

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question, Your Highness?”

  “I’m fine,” Kris said.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “If I am, I’ll have Abby write a very nasty letter to some lingerie manufacturer.”

  “Check your leg, ma’am,” Gunny said.

  Kris did. Trickles of blood showed where several darts stuck out of her spider-silk stocking.

  “I think the darts were small enough to work their way through the weave of the thing,” Jack said.

  “What about you?” Kris demanded again.

  “I’m okay,” Jack said, but then groaned.

  “Check him out, Gunny,” Kris said, and took an offered hand from a woman Marine to get herself up. The leg was definitely starting to smart. And the hang of her gown was now all wrong, as darts imbedded in her ceramic understuff held its fall.

  “Anybody see a Vicky Peterwald?” Kris asked.

  Just as the source of her query exited the ladies’ room, surrounded by a mass of hulking security. They made for the exit without looking back.

  “Lucky timing,” Jack muttered.

  “Or informed timing,” Kris added.

  “Sir,” Gunny said, “you have darts sticking out of your skull. I know Marine officers are supposed to be hardheaded, sir, but this goes beyond my usual experience of the Corps.”

  Jack chuckled, or at least tried to. He also pulled a wig off his scalp.

  “I thought you looked terribly shaggy on formal occasions,” Gunny muttered, examining the armored toupee. On the inside of the hairpiece, where its outside had stopped a dart, was now a lump. The armor had both stopped the slug and tried to spread or absorb the impact.

  “Looks like it done good,” Gunny said.

  “How is your neck, Jack?” Kris demanded. “All that force had to go somewhere. You took, what, three slugs?”

  “I’m fine, Kris,” Jack said, squinting at her. “And you are as beautiful as ever. Both of you.”

  “He’s concussed,” Gunny said.

  “Let’s get out of here. Is there a hospital close?”

  “My orders are to transport you to the embassy’s clinic, Your Highness,” Gunny said. “Captain is about one minute out with the reaction team. I am instructed to await his arrival before moving you. Either of you, sirs.”

  “Then by all means let’s do what the captain ordered,” Kris said, and, suddenly feeling the need, plopped back down.

  “Bad idea,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “Blasted leg isn’t happy with me standing, and doesn’t much like me sitting, either.

  “Captain, we’ll need two stretchers, here. Yes, sir, the princess is bleeding a mite bit, and the lieutenant is going to have one whale of a headache in the morning.”
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  “Who said anything about the morning,” Jack groaned and put his head gently down.

  Samatha was shaking like a twig in a tornado. “You saved my life,” she managed to get out through chattering teeth, as she reached out to caress Jack’s face.

  “I wouldn’t do that, ma’am,” Gunny said. “We don’t know what all is busted there.”

  And then the reinforcements arrived.

  23

  Captain DeVar moved them out as quickly and smartly as Kris expected of a Marine. Kris only tossed two monkey wrenches into his well-ordered plan.

  Kris might not have been perforated by the darts, but she was quickly coming to feel like she’d been worked over with a baseball bat. Several of them. Despite the pain, there were things Kris had to do while the moment was right.

  “Captain, assign your best electronic tech to that pile of wreckage,” Kris ordered, though gritted teeth, managing to give the auto-gun a limp wave.

  “Already in the works,” Captain DeVar snapped.

  “Nelly, get Chief Beni down here. I don’t want that auto-gun vanishing without us getting a complete workup on it.”

  “Definitely will do. Now, ma’am, I want you out of here,” the good captain insisted.

  “Take me over there on the way out,” Kris insisted. “By those women at that table.”

  With an exasperated sigh, the captain waved the stretcher bearers in that direction.

  Hotel employees were busily rolling out tables and setting up chairs around them for the well-heeled customers who were not bleeding out on the carpet. Kris pointed her bearers at what she suspected was the first table up. What else could explain why both Ms. Broadmore and Marta Whitebread allowed themselves to collapse around the same table.

  “Was this another attempt to kill you,” Ms. Broadmore demanded. Clearly, in her mind, Kris bore full responsibility for this disruption of her art show.

  “Probably,” Kris admitted with a sigh. “And I didn’t get a chance to buy a thing.”

  “None of us did.” Marta scowled.

  From the glare both women aimed at Kris she suspected her name was rapidly plunging toward the bottom of the list of people who just must be invited to every little thing.

  Hurray!

  Kris put a frown on her face and, leveling herself up on one elbow, said in as dumb a voice as she could manage through the pain. “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

  “What could that be,” Ms. Broadmore sniffed.

  “Every other time I’ve arrived on a new planet, by now I’d have met the president and half of the congress. Being Billy Longknife’s brat or Ray Longknife’s great-granddaughter usually has them coming out in droves to at least pay their respects.”

  Both women just eyed Kris, not at all grasping where this rambling was going. Kris would have to paint a very clear picture for these two.

  “Didn’t you invite any of the political powers that be to this show? Or to either of your soirees this week?”

  “Of course I did,” both women shot back immediately.

  Then paused.

  Then looked at each other. The lights going off behind their eyes had to be a least forty watts, maybe more.

  But neither said a word to Kris.

  “Your Highness, can we please get you out of here?” Captain DeVar said, as if on cue.

  Kris let herself be hauled away. But the two women were in rapid conversation before Kris was out of earshot.

  It would be interesting to see what came of that little land mine she’d planted.

  As they headed for the car park, the captain glanced over his shoulder. “Ma’am, I’m pretty well schooled in platoon and company tactics, but I’m not quite sure what I just saw.”

  Kris relaxed onto her stretcher. That didn’t make it hurt less, just hurt different. “Captain, in social circles, there is an A-list, a B-list, and a C-list. Me, I suspect today I’ve sunk to some F-or G-list.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow at that.

  “But two very proud A-list social harpies have just found out that they have been had by the real As. Used as stalking horses. Everyone likes to be in the know. I just told those two biddies that there are people in the know that knew not to show up. And those people didn’t let them know.

  “How do you think that makes them feel, Captain?”

  “Interesting, ma’am, very interesting.”

  Kris spotted Inspector Johnson getting out of his car as she was loaded into a transport. The captain now brooked no delay; Kris ended up fighting just to get her and Jack in the same hulking all-terrain rig.

  It could have passed for a tank. The only thing missing was a main battery gun. There were plenty of automatic weapons out. All the traffic now headed for the art show; her rig covered the distance to the embassy in no time at all.

  The two police cycles driving shotgun, sirens blaring, might have helped. Tomorrow, Kris would have to thank Inspector Johnson for at least one good deed.

  Kris’s tour of the embassy had not included a stop by the clinic. She had noticed that an Army doctor shared the mess with the troops. Kris, flat on her back on a gurney, did her first assessment of the doc as he did his assessment of her leg.

  Well, at least there was no alcohol on his breath.

  Captain DeVar had whispered a quiet prayer—that Kris was supposed to not have noticed—that the good doc would not have drank his supper today. The captain had asked for sobriety, what with two of his primaries out in the shooting gallery, and had sent the doc off to supper with Commander Malhoney to help him remember. Since Kris knew the good commander was much taken by the drink, she was grateful that the two of them had held themselves to the captain’s high demands.

  “Your leg is stitched, but not deeply,” the doc said. “We’ll need to cut you out of those stockings and dress.”

  “I doubt you can,” Abby said, materializing at Kris’s side. “I see you had a good time tonight.”

  “Nope,” Kris said. “No one to shoot back at. Auto-gun.”

  “Oh, pooh,” the maid said.

  “Why don’t you concentrate on Jack, Doc, who I think is in worse shape, while Abby and I get me out of this getup.”

  The doc glanced at Kris’s vitals, flashed a light in both of her eyes, let her count his fingers, and then went away.

  Abby closed the curtains behind him, giving Kris a bit of modesty, put both her hands on her hips, and scowled down at Kris. “You are a mess.”

  “Could you scold me later?” Kris said. “The pain is nasty, and I doubt that horse doctor will give me anything until he’s had a chance to see all my black-and-blue spots.

  “I heard that and you got it right, Your Highness” came from across the partition.

  “Let’s get you out of that dress,” Abby said, reaching for scissors. “I’m not going to tell you how much you paid for it.”

  “Somebody will get a bill for this,” Kris said darkly.

  “No doubt. Now hold still. I don’t want to cut nothing off you that you can’t afford to lose.” The dress came off in pieces. The darts held it solidly in place, not letting go from where they had dug themselves into the reactive section of the ceramic body girdle. That girdle had done its job; it and all the darts came off together. Only from the inside could Kris see the cracks and spalling. It had held—but just barely.

  Peeling off the bodystocking was almost work as usual, except that every time Kris twisted or turned to work the spider silk down her body she wanted to scream.

  Her right side was an ugly line of black and blue where the rounds had hit, been stopped, but demanded payment for the energy they gave up from the soft flesh beneath. At least the ceramic armor had done a good job of spreading the energy.

  Spider silk stopped a round. As far as its energy went, that was a matter not mentioned in the promotional material.

  When the bodystocking was down to just Kris’s right leg, Abby wrapped her in a modest blue gown and said. “Doc, when you can pry your
self away from that hardheaded Marine, this Navy type is ready for a look-see.”

  “Sorry, Princess, but you’ll have to wait. You aren’t nearly as interesting a collection of bruises and contusions as this fellow I’ve got in my clutches right now.”

  “What?” Kris yelped, and tried to roll off the table. That produced another yelp. A very real one.

  Abby made sure that Kris laid back down, then called over the curtain. “Jack, you decent? Mind if I let this nosey neighbor of yours at least look at your ugly mug?”

  “I’m not sure if I’m decent or not. They kind of got me locked down” came back in a way-too-shaky voice.

  “Abby, open that curtain,” Kris demanded.

  “I could point out that only family are allowed in here,” came back from the doc.

  “I drafted him. He’s head of my security team. Doc, open up,” Kris almost pleaded.

  “Well, since you put it that way. Open the curtain. She drafted you, boy, and you’re still speaking to her?”

  “Seems that way, Doc.”

  So a corpsman slid the curtain aside.

  And Kris swallowed the first five things she tried to say.

  Jack’s dress uniform was in shreds on the floor. No, on closer examination, it was in distinct pieces. Apparently, whoever designed armored dress uniforms made allowances for taking them apart after heavy use.

  But that wasn’t what held Kris’s eyes.

  Jack was splayed out in some kind of traction. His back, his neck, and his skull were surrounded by things that held him. It looked like he was being eaten by a huge metal spider.

  They had stripped him down to the bare nothing, revealing a back and butt that was a sickly gray in the few places it wasn’t livid black and blue. His minimum modesty was preserved by a towel someone had thrown over the vitals.

  Kris finally emitted something like a gasp.

  “Does he need all that?” she whispered.

  “Most likely not,” the doc said, stepping away from Jack. “But you ever met a doc who don’t like to play with all his toys when he gets a chance. Especially when someone else is picking up the tab.” The doc had gray eyes that sparkled and white hair that gave him the look of a father everyone could use. Only the lines around his eyes showed worry. At the moment, those lines were etched deeply as he took in Jack.