Kris Longknife: Resolute Read online

  As if there was more than one of Kris.

  And suddenly Kris discovered that the chief of her security detail, no matter what his rank, could issue her orders. Tell her what she could and could not do!

  It had been a rough trip out. It looked to be a rough command as well.

  And that was before the skipper of the St. Pete commed Kris and told her that High Chance was only responding with automatics. No human voice. Nothing but the basics.

  Beni and Nelly’s scans showed only the most fundamental activity on the station. Solar cells feed battery back-ups and not much more. No reactor on-line. Just about nothing.

  The skipper of the St. Pete balked at docking at High Chance under those circumstances, but Kris pointed out the contract he’d signed for her transportation. He could dock, therefore he would dock or face the legal assault an angry Longknife could throw at his company. Fuming, he brought his ship alongside the station, and, to his surprise, the automatics clicked into gear and hauled it in. The last thing Kris heard as she crossed the gangplank was that the St. Pete was even drawing reaction mass from the stations’ tanks. And being charged for it. Some things were working. Some things always worked if you paid for them.

  Like BuPers. Navy personnel always got assignments. Probably not the one they wanted, but, what with the fleet growing, there were always plenty of vacancies to go around. Unless your father happened to be the Prime Minister and your Great-grandfather was the king, of sorts, of the hundred-planet association that Wardhaven tried to lead.

  “And don’t forget that situation on the Typhoon,” General Mac McMorrison had reminded her at their last meeting.

  Situation. What a nice ambiguous word. It avoided the more specific and nasty word . . . mutiny. Kris had actually taken a friend’s half-joking suggestion and hired a PR firm to come up with a better word for what developed on the Typhoon. Several large checks later, their report had been hardly worth a laugh. Probably because Kris hadn’t felt all that much like laughing after the Battle of Wardhaven and the loss of so many friends. No, the Typhoon and mutiny were going to be tied closely with her first year in the Navy.

  “Still having problems finding skippers willing to take me?”

  “Afraid so. Commodore Mandanti put in a good word after your service in Squadron 8, but most of his friends are retired, like he was. And even his good word kind of leaves skippers wondering when you’ll decide you’ve had enough of being a good subordinate and head off for points unknown.”

  Kris shrugged. “Training Command was working so well.”

  “But no planet small enough to need Fast Patrol boats for its defense can afford the kind of security you need. And no one wants to be the planet that has to explain to Ray Longknife . . . or Billy . . . that you got killed on their watch. Sorry, Your Highness, but once again, we need to find work for you.”

  “What’s Sandy Santiago doing?” Kris said, with hope.

  “You mean Captain Santiago,” Mac corrected her. “I’ve got her straightening up some of the mess left behind by that little visit those six pirate battleships did on us.”

  “Pirate battleships my eye,” Kris spat.

  “You want to attack the Greenfeld Confederacy?”

  “No,” Kris admitted. Wardhaven’s United Sentients and Greenfeld’s Confederacy were too evenly matched; open war between them would lead to all kinds of horrors. Which was why Greenfeld dearly wanted Wardhaven in a fight with someone while Greenfeld added this or that additional star to its black and red flag. Meanwhile, they skirmished around the edges.

  “So Captain Santiago doesn’t have a ship command at the moment,” Kris said. As a very junior lieutenant, Kris very much wanted to stay in the fleet, not get tagged as a staff weenie.

  Mac shuffled flimsies, one of which was Kris’s resignation. They never had one of these counseling sessions without him having her resignation handy. “You adamant about a ship assignment? What would you think of an independent command?”

  “Didn’t you tell me during an earlier one of these chats that lieutenants don’t get independent commands?”

  “I may have been mistaken. It happens occasionally, even to folks with stars on their shoulders. Ask your gramps.”

  This was after Grampa Trouble pulled his “draft Jack” stunt and Kris wasn’t talking to either one of her grampas just then. She kept her face blank and said, “What kind of independent command can a lieutenant have?”

  “How about a Naval District?”

  Kris frowned at the joke. “Aren’t those slots all Rear Admirals?” Kris struggled to keep her voice even. Lieutenants do not chide four stars. Even when the lieutenant is a princess. Especially when the lieutenant is a princess.

  “That’s what I’d have said a week ago. But BuPers got this retirement chit from a lieutenant commanding Naval District 41.”

  Kris didn’t know which to react to first. Lieutenant. Commanding. Naval District 41. She’d never heard of any such Naval District. She settled her face to bland and let Mac play this one the way he wanted to. After all, he did wear four stars. He ought to have some fun sometimes.

  “It seems we inherited 41 when Society broke up. Earth hadn’t been paying much attention to it, except to cut its budget every year. I don’t think they’ve had anything but local reservists on the staff, except for this lieutenant commanding.”

  “How did a lieutenant get command of a Naval district?” Kris couldn’t sit on that question any longer.

  “Actually, he was temporary acting. A captain assigned to Naval District 41 died in transit.” Mac shuffled his flimsies. “Next one wrangled a better assignment. They never got around to assigning anyone else, so this fellow put in his twenty and filed for retirement.” Mac looked up. “With us.”

  “Retiring at twenty as a lieutenant?” Kris whispered.

  “Says here he wants to run a chicken farm full-time.”

  “You’re thinking of sticking me out there for my twenty?”

  Mac shuffled her resignation to the top of his stack again.

  “Cut my orders,” Kris said.

  “Besides First Lieutenant Montoya, do you want anyone else?”

  “Lieutenant Pasley-Lien on Intel.”

  “She’s still not fully recovered from her wounds,” the general said, raising an eyebrow. The physical wounds were healing. The mental pay for being alive at the cost of her bridegroom’s life would be a long time balancing.

  “She did fine in Training Command. She needs work more than anything else.” And Longknifes take care of those they break.

  The general nodded.

  “Does Captain Santiago want Beni back?”

  “Actually, she was hoping you could make a sailor out of him. Any progress there?”

  “Not much, but he is due for his chief ’s hat.”

  “A bit early, isn’t it,” the general said, and danged if he didn’t have another flimsy to check.

  “Deep selection, but he deserves it.”

  And so Kris found herself hundreds of light-years away from home, clicking the safety back on her automatic before she holstered it and staring down at a set of flimsies written to her by a man she’d never met but whose fate in life she might repeat.

  To: Prospective Commanding Officer, Naval District 41 From: Commanding Officer, Naval District 41, retiring. Subject: Change of Command Ceremony

  There ain’t going to be one.

  Sorry about that, but I had to do what I had to do while I could still do it. The reservists have served with me for a whole lot more hours than any of them ever expected to. They deserve the retirements I signed them in to.

  And they don’t deserve to be dragged all over space to fit into whatever plans you Longknifes may have for them now that you’ve noticed that they’re here. Wardhaven and Earth ignored us for as long as it suited you. So now that you noticed us after I applied for my retirement, I figured I better look after my own. Bet nobody expected me, a mere lieutenant to exercise the full authority o
f a Naval District Commander? Got you there.

  NELLY, CAN I APPROVE THE REQUEST FOR RESERVISTS TO RETIRE?

  PER EXISTING REGULATIONS, YOU MAY APPROVE RETIREMENT REQUESTS FOR ANY ENLISTED RESERVE PERSONNEL WHO HAVE MET THE STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS. AT LEAST, A NAVAL DISTRICT COMMANDER CAN, Nelly added.

  But who’d have expected a lieutenant to do that. Well, you leave a lieutenant in an admiral’s job for fifteen years and he’s bound to notice options the usual JO wouldn’t.

  AND HE IS RETIRED NOW. IT IS NOT LIKE WE CAN DO SOMETHING TO HIM.

  There were snickers from behind Kris. Chief Beni and Penny were looking over her shoulder. Jack looked about to bust a gut wondering what the message said that was causing such humor, but he manfully stood his watch.

  “There won’t be a change of command,” Kris said for Jack’s benefit. “Seems the last CO also retired all his reservists.”

  “No active duty?” Jack said, frowning.

  “Not a one,” the chief chortled.

  “At ease,” Kris growled.

  Jack blinked, taking it all in, then shook his head. “You can’t command if there’s no one to command,” he said with much the same absoluteness that a child might say, “One and one is two.”

  “I am the commander of Naval District 41,” Kris said, letting that Longknife determination salt the words.

  “It may get a bit lonely,” Penny said, glancing around, then settling into a chair at the table.

  Kris wasn’t going to wait for any more nay saying. “Chief, activate this station. Let’s see what we have here.”

  “All of it? I don’t think the solar arrays can.”

  “If the chief will throw that main switch,” Nelly said, “I have developed a plan to activate the security system and other key subsets so we can determine if the station is safe.”

  With a scowl at Kris’s neckline, Chief Beni went where Nelly said, threw a switch, punched some buttons, and started doing his own version of waking up the station.

  “Don’t activate the central power station,” Nelly said.

  “We have to,” Beni shot back.

  “Nelly, Chief, you two take it over there and argue among yourselves,” Kris ordered. “Penny, Jack, verify that we are alone on this station and it is safe and stable.”

  “I have verified that you should be getting right back on that ship that brought you and leaving this station,” Jack snapped. “We are what, two, three jumps from Peterwald space since they took down the government on Brenner Pass. Kris, this is not a safe station for you. Not like this.”

  But Penny backed her chair away from the table, spun in it and started initializing a workstation, bringing it up as a security monitor. It gave her a quick report of ALL CLEAR. She then took it through a slower and more specific survey, ending with her eyeballing several locations around the station. “Everything looks as good as a place can be that’s been powered down for the last, ah, three weeks, at least.”

  Jack looked over Penny’s shoulder for a minute, doing his own check, lips going tighter as the moments passed. “Yes, yes, if you aren’t bothered by a security system that doesn’t ask you for any password when you wake it up,” he growled, then turned to Kris. “So, it doesn’t look like there are some hungry cannibals hiding out, waiting to roast you for dinner. Still, Kris, ah, Princess, you can’t mean to leave yourself hanging out here for any passing ship to take a shot at.”

  Jack had a point. A good one, as his usually were. But like most of his good points, it was not what Kris wanted to hear.

  She gave him her best optimist smile. “Isn’t there an old Navy tradition that says ‘Don’t give up the ship?’”

  “This is a space station,” Chief Beni said, helpfully, from where he and Nelly were still arguing how much juice they could pull. “Maybe it doesn’t count.”

  Kris eyed the young chief. His lower chin . . . and middle one, too . . . was quivering. He’d proven he could be plenty courageous when all hell was busting loose. He just didn’t believe in going there if he could avoid it.

  Kris settled into a chair at the table. Nice simulated wood. Solid. Wide. Jack couldn’t get at her without giving plenty of warning. She let the silence fill up. Penny was the first to notice it. She spun her chair around and returned to the table. Chief Beni and Nelly reached some sort of accord, and fell silent. The chief came to the table. Kris actually felt a more concentrated presence of Nelly in her head and on her shoulders. Jack finally double-checked the safety on his assault rifle, laid it on the table, and settled into a chair beside Penny.

  “Well, Your Highness, it appears that you want to hold a staff meeting,” he said. “Is it to seek advice or, as usual, to let us know what mess you’re getting us into next?”

  “The usual,” Kris said with the best perky smile she could manufacture at the moment. Jack didn’t look fooled. He kept drumming his fingers on his rifle.

  “Look, we’ve got a Naval District to defend,” Kris said.

  “Does it need defending?” Penny asked.

  That gave Kris pause. “Of course. How can you say that?” “Well, just look at it,” Penny said, slowly turning her chair from one side to the other. The Intel officer was mostly quiet these days. Withdrawn. But she wasn’t any dumber than she’d been when she said yes to Tommy’s proposal. “The place has been sitting here unattended and getting along fine. It’s been ignored by Earth and Wardhaven since forever, and no one bothered it.” Penny shrugged. “I mean, Kris, if you want to have the command, I’m all for sticking with you, but, defend this place. Aren’t you getting a little carried away?”

  Kris sat back in her chair. No, Penny wasn’t dumb . . . and she’d seen straight to where Kris lived. But she hadn’t totally read Kris’s mind.

  Or Nelly’s. JUST LET US FIND OUT WHAT LIES BEHIND MY NEW JUMP POINTS, the computer said, AND WE SHALL SEE WHO IS INTERESTED IN CHANCE.

  YES, GIRL, BUT WE CAN’T GO CHECKING OUT ALIENS RIGHT NOW.

  YES MA’AM, Nelly said obediently. Sort of.

  Kris made sure her conversation with Nelly didn’t reach her face. Slowly she eyed Jack and Chief Beni. They looked pretty much in agreement with Penny. That was the problem when you worked with people you let become close friends. They knew when you were pulling the wool over your own eyes even before you did.

  Kris really did want her own command. Even if it was just quiet Naval District 41. She let her breath out in a sigh. “Okay, let’s start over. Naval District 41 doesn’t look like much, but it’s mine, see. All mine. I’d like to see what I can do with it. That honest enough?”

  “And if a half dozen Iteeche destroyers come loping through the local jump point . . . ?” Jack said.

  “We head dirtside, rouse the locals to guerrilla warfare, and hide in the deepest caves we can find,” Kris said.

  “I can drink to that,” the chief said, raising an imaginary mug of brew.

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t like it, Kris,” he said for the millionth time.

  “You’re not paid to like it, Jack,” Kris answered for the millionth and first time.

  “So we’re going to just sit here and play target?”

  “No,” Kris cut in, letting her Longknife grin out to play. “I have no intention of just sitting anywhere. We’ve got buoys to tend, places to explore.”

  YOU BET, Nelly said with as much of a playful grin as a computer was allowed. I WANT TO SEE WHERE THOSE NEW JUMP POINTS LEAD.

  DOWN, GIRL. ALL IN DUE TIME.

  “You don’t have a ship, Kris,” Penny pointed out. “Not really. You don’t intend to use that cruiser for anything but show, do you?”

  Kris had gotten a good look at the Patton, an Iteeche Wars era light cruiser, tied up to the station when the St. Pete was on approach. Her orders were not to commission the ship except for a major emergency. Her orders didn’t define what was a major emergency, but after a quick glance at the report on the old cruiser, Kris was pretty sure she’d have to be very desperate to ev
en try to get the reactors going for that old bucket of bolts. The contractors who brought it out had slept in space suits . . . something about not trusting the ship to keep its pressure up. They’d been only too glad to be quit of the ship. They’d spent the trip out identifying discrepancies, not looking for them, just listing the ones that slapped them in the face. Kris ran the list and quit when it went past four hundred thousand.

  Some brilliant type at headquarters had come up with the idea that the people on planets might feel safer in these uncertain times if they had a warship in their sky. Maybe other planets got something better, but clearly Chance had drawn the bottom of the barrel. No, the Patton was not a likely means of transportation for Kris.

  Besides, Kris didn’t need a full-fledged cruiser to check the Jump Point buoys and do the looking around she had in mind. No, something much smaller would fit her needs very nicely.

  “We need a buoy tender. Nice little one.”

  Penny shook her head. “I don’t think Naval District 41 is funded for a buoy tender, even part-time. My record check showed it hasn’t had one pass through for the last five years, then I quit looking. No way will the Navy assign one to us.”

  Kris grinned at Penny. “So we don’t ask the Navy for one. Ever leased a boat before?”

  The Intel officer relaxed into her chair. “That’s a relief. For a moment, I was afraid you wanted me to hijack one.”

  “She’d never do that,” Jack said, face dead serious. “If there’s a ship to be stolen, she’ll do it herself.”

  Kris shot Jack a glare but he just grinned back at her. Kris returned her attention to the Navy lieutenant. “All we need is a small merchant vessel with a hold large enough for a half dozen spare buoys. Obviously, it needs to be jump capable. Bigger than our PFs, smaller than a corvette like the Typhoon .”