Kris Longknife: Daring Read online

  Kris turned to the screen behind her. From a view of pipes and cabling, it changed to a star map. “This is human space. Over seven hundred colonized planets stretching across several hundred light-years. Linked by jump points bequeathed to us by aliens who built them a couple of million years ago, our migration from Mother Earth has been relatively quick over the last not quite four hundred years.”

  Kris paused for people to take in the view and her words. “You might notice that, from a certain outside perspective, human space looks very much like a sausage.” She waited to get a few nods and smiles, before adding dryly, “Only one species has tried to take a bite out of us, and they haven’t been heard from for eighty years.”

  That got a few chuckles.

  NELLY, EXPAND TO VIEW TWO.

  “Which brings us to the Iteeche Empire.” Kris used a laser pointer to draw an oval around a much larger expanse of space that now showed. “Over two thousand worlds, but growing slower than us. They, too, kind of resemble a sausage, larger and lumpier. One of its ends kind of bumping up against the middle of us.”

  Kris let the image of the Iteeche Empire, covering nearly four times the space of humanity, sink in to her audience.

  “I can say, from personal experience, that we’ve been expanding human space away from the Empire.” NELLY, LIGHT UP RECENTLY COLONIZED PLANETS.

  Quite a few planets on the edge of human space began to flash. None of them were close to the Empire.

  “I can now say that I have it on good report that the Iteeche have taken the same approach.” NELLY, HIGHLIGHT THEIR RECENT COLONIES.

  A large number of planets began to flash, not as many as those in human space, but still a major number. However, all of them were well away from human-occupied planets.

  This brought a murmur from Kris’s watchers, but no one voiced the question that should have been on all their minds.

  How did Kris know where the new Iteeche colonies were?

  Well, Crossie had leaked them the original meeting’s video.

  Kris waited for her audience to process that.

  NELLY, VIEW THREE.

  Slowly, the view of human and Iteeche space shrank as the star map expanded to a view of the entire Milky Way galaxy.

  “Humbling, isn’t it?” Kris said, once the view settled. Human space and the related Iteeche area were two tiny eggs in a vast expanse of stars.

  “We’ve got a big backyard. Unexplored. Unknown. The last time we went charging off into the unknown with wild abandon, we bumped heads with the Iteeche. I believe the Treaty of Wardhaven that my great-grandfather rammed through the Society of Humanity’s senate passed unanimously. Since that time, we’ve been more careful about sticking our noses into the unknown. I understand the Iteeche have gone about their exploration with a similar caution,” she added dryly.

  Again, heads nodded. No one seemed to doubt she was humanity’s greatest living expert on the Iteeche.

  She was. Still, it surprised her that no one demanded to examine her credentials.

  “As some of you have heard, the Iteeche Exploration Bureau has suffered some losses lately. Three jump points to certain stars have been eating up any ships that drop in and not spitting up so much as an atom. Anything the Iteeche send there do not come back. We have been asked if our high technology might allow us to slip something in without drawing fire. Could one of our probes make it back?”

  Her audience leaned forward. What she said next could easily have a life-or-death impact on them.

  “I’ve refused to dangle our highest technology in the dark where it can be snapped up by unknown forces with us none the wiser as to what we face. So far, that has been adopted as Wardhaven, ah, excuse me, U.S. policy. If we’re going there, we’re taking the human eyeball along with us. Which brings us to the next options.

  “I spent much of my dinner last night listening to King Raymond, Grampa to me, telling me in great detail why we should not duplicate the same search that the Iteeche have already done and lost a small squadron of ships while doing it. If Grampa had let me get a word in edgewise sooner, we could have saved a lot of time for some other topic to argue over.”

  Kris went on quickly without waiting for a reaction.

  “I do not propose this Fleet of Discovery go anywhere near those stars. They are hot datum for somebody, drawing attention to this edge of the galaxy, and I would just as soon not attract their interest any closer to my dad, brother, nieces, and nephews.

  “Are we clear on that?” Kris said firmly.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Admiral Krätz said for all.

  “You might not be so glad to hear what comes next,” Kris said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’ve already heard mention of the fear, even if it is said as a joke, that I or we will come back with something mean and ugly snapping at our heels.” Kris’s eyes roved the room. From the looks of things, most of them had heard, or made, the same crack.

  “None of our ships return unless and until we are sure that there is nothing behind us but empty space.”

  “How very Japanese of you,” Admiral Kōta said into the silence.

  “So far, all you’ve told us is what we won’t do,” Admiral Channing said. “When do we find out what we will do?”

  “Right now,” Kris said, turning back to the star map. “All of the Iteeche and just about all of humanity are hanging out here on this arm of the Milky Way. Humanity does have one exception. Santa Maria.”

  Kris swung her laser pointer to a tiny light Nelly had blinking a third of the way around the galaxy. “Founded by the hopelessly lost and desperate crew of one of Earth’s first exploration ships nearly four hundred years ago, it hangs alone out here. There’s been some exploration around it, but the Santa Marians are still busy colonizing their own system. Few people looking for fertile ground want to start out with the long jump it takes to get to Santa Maria.”

  Kris turned back to her listeners. “However, for a voyage of discovery, it looks like a great place to begin. Gentlemen, I hope your ship’s power plants and stabilization systems are in good shape. I intend to lead this fleet on some fast jumps with very high and very precise spins on our ships. If you don’t think you can do it, drop out now. I’d hate to lose your ship in a bad jump.”

  If possible, the room fell even more silent.

  Somewhere, someone broke it. “I told you we were crazy to follow one of those damn Longknifes.”

  Kris let a wry chuckle sweep the room before going on.

  “I would draw your attention to the U.S. contingent. PatRon 10. They are converted and armed merchant ships. Corvettes, folks. Small, fast, and loaded with sensors. They’re good at poking their noses into things and getting out fast.

  “That, folks, is our mission. We will scout far, scout well, and run like bats out of hell. Our job is to see and report back. Nothing else.”

  Kris paused to let that sink in. “I can’t help but notice that for some reason, you have brought battleships. I know it feels good to be backed up by muscle and they are good in a fight.”

  That brought proud smiles from the battleship sailors among them.

  “But you Big Boys are slow and very conspicuous. I do not intend to start or allow myself to get involved in a fight,” Kris snapped, and the smiles got swallowed.

  “We are going out there to see, identify, and run back. You remember that old saying. ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ Forget it. Our goal is, We came, we saw, we ran like hell away.”

  That got a laugh, which grew louder when some wag was heard to exclaim, “Who is this strange woman, and what have they done with Kris Longknife?”

  Kris waited a moment for things to quiet down to a dull roar before saying, “Just so long as we understand ourselves.” Then she began to outline all the boring details that needed to be covered before they departed on their voyage of discovery.

  6

  “That’s Santa Maria’s star field. We made it,” Nelly announced. Only then did Kris and everyon
e in her Tac Center start breathing again.

  Grampa Ray had strongly encouraged Kris to take the twoweek-long, dozen-jump route to Santa Maria. Since he didn’t actually make it an order, she’d chosen to lead her fleet through the wild, two-jump route that had first accidentally taken Grampa Ray to the lost colony of Santa Maria. That sabotaged jump had been intended to kill him and everyone on the ship carrying him.

  Instead, he’d discovered a couple of million lost humans and the first map of the jump-point system.

  “Longknifes aren’t easy to kill” was Grampa’s usual ending to that story.

  Kris watched as the jump point rapidly coughed out more ships. Once through, each ship dampened its spin to a steady course but did not slow down. When the count reached twenty-two ships, Kris finally relaxed. For a recon mission best done by a scurrying mouse, this fleet was rapidly becoming very much like an elephant.

  Just how much of a zoo it would end up remained to be seen.

  A day’s trip sunward was Santa Maria’s inhabited planet. On any normal cruise, Kris should go there, if for no other reason than to pay her respects to Tommy Lien’s folks. Tommy had been her first friend in the Navy. She hadn’t seen his parents since his wedding to Penny.

  Or his funeral three days later.

  Kris glanced at Penny; she was busy taking reports from each ship as it came through the jump. Penny had not mentioned Tommy in months.

  Kris would respect her silence.

  “Where to next, Princess?” Captain Drago, the contract skipper of the Wasp, asked.

  “Jump Point Beta,” Kris ordered. “See that we get there with the same velocity on the boat. Please have maintenance take a good look at the ship’s stabilization system.”

  “Already doing it. Nothing wrong with it and I want it to stay that way.”

  The jump points built by the aliens two million years ago had opened space to humanity. Well, the Iteeche, too, and maybe someone else.

  That didn’t mean the jump-point system was without its problems. The jumps connected several stars, all of which could be accessed if you knew how and were willing to take the risks. What this meant was that the orbit that any particular jump point took around any individual star tended to be a bit erratic as the impact of the other star system’s accumulated gravity had its effect as well.

  In addition to the tendency to wander, there was also the question of which star system your ship jumped to. If you entered the jump at a safe, dead-slow pace and with your ship stabilized rock-solid steady, you exited into a star system not too far from the one you left. Always the same one.

  That was nice and dependable. Insurance companies liked that.

  Enter a jump at high speed, or under acceleration, or with a spin on your hull, and the results could be spectacularly different.

  For the last four hundred years it had been human practice to do the nice and slow and steady thing at jump points. Owners, shippers, and high commands like the dependable results.

  Ship captains who took chances were frequently never heard from again. Grampa Ray’s ship was one of the first to recover from a bad jump. The Sheffield had been outfitted as an exploration ship, and instruments had recorded all the motion on the ship. That allowed them to double back.

  The news of the Sheffield’s return had been greeted wildly, not the least by Great-gramma Rita, eight months pregnant with Kris’s grandfather Al.

  Other folks had also been excited about exploration prospects. Ships were quickly fitted out.

  And they bumped right into the Iteeche.

  One thing about a war, it concentrates the mind. It also sucks up all available cash. Exploration funds vanished from the budget.

  Once peace came, Grampa Ray made sure human exploration of space was measured and careful.

  Now Kris Longknife, Ray’s great-granddaughter, was wadding up the restrictions of his beloved Treaty of Wardhaven and tossing them in the trash can.

  And taking a small battle fleet with her.

  How was that for the new generation trashing its elders?

  In a few weeks . . . maybe months . . . Kris would know whether all Grampa Ray’s caution had been a good idea.

  Kris’s Fleet of Discovery stayed well out; few people on Santa Maria would even know they passed that way. And those few had been sworn to secrecy. With any luck, this secret would last long enough for Kris to go and come back.

  Kris suspected that whatever information they brought back could be kept secret for, oh, maybe twelve seconds.

  Following behind the Wasp, PatRon 10 accelerated at one gee in echelon with Kris’s flagship: the Fearless, and Intrepid in close, the resupply ships Surprise and Surplus . . . already rechristened by the fleet Misplaced and Misfiled, formed a square with the messenger packets Hermes and Mercury. Kris had no intentions of leaving a trail of communication buoys behind her at every jump point she used. Once the fleet took leave of Santa Maria, communications back to human space would be by ship.

  The rest of the fleet trailed behind PatRon 10. The four battleships of Greenfeld’s BatRon 12 followed in a fighting square, their four auxiliaries trailing them in a square of their own. The Musashi and Helvitican warships formed another fighting square, the Haruna and Chikuma to the right, the Swiftsure and the Triumph to the left. Behind them came the two supply ships they had contracted for at Wardhaven once they’d realized what they were getting into.

  Lieutenant Commander Taussig’s Hornet pulled up the rear with a message packet that was also a last-minute addition, the Kestrel. This rear guard was responsible for riding herd on any of the trailing ships. If their jump point did a last-second juggle, and the large, lumbering battleships couldn’t find where the jump had gotten to, the Hornet would see that they got through.

  All of the battleship admirals assured Kris this really wasn’t necessary. The sensor suites on all their ships were just as upto-date as anything Wardhaven had.

  Maybe that was true. Still, Taussig was back there with the Hornet just in case.

  Matters went well as the fleet quickly crossed Santa Marian space. They accelerated for the first half of the trip, then flipped and decelerated for the rest. They were making fifty thousand kilometers an hour, with twenty clockwise revolutions a minute down the long axis of the ship as they sped toward Jump Point Beta.

  With thirty seconds to go, the navigator goosed the Wasp up to three gees acceleration.

  One after another, twenty-three ships vanished into the unknown.

  7

  “How far did we go?” Kris asked expectantly.

  “I’ll tell you when we find out,” Nelly answered.

  “What’s the new system look like? Any sign of life?” Kris added, eyeing the blank screen of her Tac Center.

  “You will know when we all know,” Nelly snapped. “Now, will you quit juggling my elbow and let me process what’s coming in?”

  “Nelly’s in a bad mood,” Kris said, glancing around at her team.

  “Kris, things take time, even for a Longknife,” Jack said. His eyes were on the screen as it slowly filled up with a sun and three huge gas giants. It took a minute more for a half dozen small rock planets to blink onto the screen.

  “The Kestrel is through,” Penny said, her breath coming out in a sigh. “Everyone made the jump.”

  That was a relief to all. The Wasp had dropped its acceleration to half a gee. Until they spotted a jump point, there was no course for the fleet to follow. Throughout the ship, on the bridge and in boffin country, sensor teams pored over a whole raft of instruments. Slowly, the products of all that effort flowed onto the four screens that covered the bulkheads of Kris’s Tac Room.

  They had jumped over 750 light-years.

  None of the planets orbiting the soft yellow sun was in the life zone, where water could survive in all three of its lifegiving options: gas, liquid, and solid. Life as we knew it was unlikely here.

  The usual telecommunication frequencies were silent. No one was transmitting ra
dio or TV messages. Laser communications also seemed absent. The boffins would continue monitoring for a sudden change, but, for the moment, technology showed no evidence of ever having touched this system of cold rocks and colder gases.

  Per the jump-point map Grampa Ray had found on Santa Maria, two jump points were supposed to be in this system. After ten minutes of searching, the bridge reported they had located both of them.

  Kris reviewed the two options they offered. Some of the best astronomers and astrophysicists had been called in to develop a list for Kris to choose from. One jump led to an old red dwarf, slowly moldering away into a quiet death. The other led to a giant star, a prime candidate for something explosive like a nova ending its life. Not the thing Kris wanted her ships to find at the end of their next jump. The red dwarf also offered several jump choices that should be equally safe.

  Or at least had been two million years ago, when the aliens blazed this trail across the stars.

  To get long leaps between stars, you had to leap before you looked.

  On Kris’s orders, the fleet set a course for the jump that led to the red dwarf. As luck would have it, it was the closer of the two.

  As before, they accelerated until midcourse, then began the deceleration. Once again, they flipped at the last minute and hit the jump at what at any other time would have been considered a suicidal speed, with ships accelerating and spinning like delicately balanced tops.

  In two weeks, they’d made ten nail-biting jumps, and were over fifteen thousand light-years from Santa Maria. They’d trotted through ten lifeless and uninteresting systems. For a Fleet of Discovery that had launched with such great expectations, they had very little to show for all their effort.

  Then the eleventh jump changed everything.

  8

  “Your Highness, we need to spend a couple of days refueling in this system,” Captain Drago said as they shot into their eleventh new star system.

  “You think so?” Kris answered.