Kris Longknife: Resolute Read online

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  Kris woke next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs. She showered and dressed quickly and went in search of the source of that wonderful aroma. Jack had a small corner of the huge kitchen working; a griddle sizzled with the source of Kris’s aromatic joy. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook,” she said, filling a mug with coffee.

  “I asked my computer how to scramble eggs and fry bacon and, surprise, surprise, those instructions were in memory.”

  “Of course,” Nelly sniffed. “Every computer knows how to cook basic items. I kept wondering why none of you asked for instructions. I assumed you doubted you could follow them.”

  “You really do want a session with Aunt Tru, don’t you?” Kris muttered.

  “You’re looking awfully chipper this morning,” a bleary-eyed Chief Beni said from the mess door. In bathrobe and flip-flops, he looked like he’d had a rough night.

  “You didn’t sleep well?” Kris asked, sipping her coffee.

  “She really did sleep through it,” Jack said. As Kris would have expected, he was showered, shaved, and impeccably uniformed, the damage to his shoeshine repaired. But closer observation showed dark edges under his eyes.

  “Sleep through what?”

  “The arrival of our first contingent of museum techs at two this morning, station time. You didn’t hear the defense alarms.”

  “No. Nelly?”

  “I was aware we had a shuttle approaching. I backtracked it to its launch site, checked the video of it loading, and verified the IDs of all the passengers. They were all part of the Historical Society, of which the three veterans Kris talked to are charter members. So I concluded the shuttle was no threat. I tried to tell the station’s security system of my conclusion, but it refused my input. It insisted only you two could make a determination. Since Kris authorized me to make a security determination for her, I let her sleep. Maybe you should let me do the same for you,” Nelly added.

  “Do you want to trust her computer?” Beni said to Jack.

  “If it lets me get a good night’s sleep,” the First Lieutenant said, ladling eggs from the griddle onto three plates. “It looks like we’re going to have traffic from the surface at all hours. You want to stand a twenty-four/seven watch?”

  “No,” the chief said.

  “The jump points are another matter,” Jack said setting loaded breakfast plates down for all of them.

  “Both the one from Lorna Do and the one from Peterwald space are over two days out at one g. Nelly, wake us up if something comes through those jumps,” Kris said as Beni attacked his eggs.

  “Of course,” Nelly said.

  “Then it’s settled,” Kris said. “Nelly is now part of our security team and will stand a twenty-four/seven watch for the station.”

  “Access to our rooms will be much tighter,” Jack said, waving a momentarily empty fork Kris’s, or Nelly’s, way.

  “Of course. I do not want to be stolen.”

  Kris grinned at Nelly’s developing sense of self-interest.

  As they finished breakfast Jack said, “I need to refine the security situation on the station. Kris, could you have Nelly hitch into my computer and work with me.”

  “Nelly, please do.” Kris went on thoughtfully. “I’ll spend the day reviewing our bunch of willing workers on the Patton. See how much of a danger they are to the ship . . . and to themselves. Chief, you want to come with me?”

  Beni scratched under his bathrobe and nodded. “Give me time to clean up and I’m yours for the day.”

  The tour of the work effort on the Patton was interesting. No one was actually in charge among the Proud Old Farts, or POFs as they called themselves, but no one seemed to need to be. They had divided the work up and were in the assessment stage.

  “It is bad,” one old gal in coveralls told Kris. “I read the report, but you have to see it to believe it. Kid, this tub ain’t nearly as old as me and she’s in a whole lot worse shape.”

  “She never got the loving you got,” the codger next to her put in, which set the tone for the day. Kris was neither lieutenant nor princess to these folk. No, she was The Kid. Either that or General Ray’s Brat to those who’d served with him, usually with an aside about how hard it was to believe the old bastard lived long enough to have such a lovely great-granddaughter. Kris was used to not getting much respect, but this paternalism, or maybe maternalism, that ended just short of pinching her cheek, was totally new. She weighed her options, considered invoking her rank . . . and dropped the idea without further reflection. It was clear, even to a blind man, that around here the status she’d earned with the Navy counted for nothing. Less than nothing. She could accept these folks on their terms or be ignored.

  Kris decided she didn’t much care, their presence got New Chicago Pizza running by lunchtime. For that heavenly gain, they could call her The Kid and maybe even pinch a cheek. Watching Beni demolish a large pepperoni, she suspected if she loused up this deal, he’d mutiny. And might take Jack with him.

  Before she left, she introduced herself to Tony and asked how he’d powered the ovens. “Oh, we service folks have an auxiliary power source. Antimatter powered. I just unplug the pod from my shuttle, move it inside, then unplug it later and take it back to the shuttle. Recharge it down below. No problem.”

  “Mind if we use it when you’re not using it?”

  “I think, if you check, Steve had one installed as a backup for the station’s reactor.”

  That was news to Kris. “Chief,” she called to the growing boy who wasn’t finished with his lunch yet.

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Call your good friend Steve the Taxi Man and ask him about the station’s antimatter backup power.”

  “We got backup power?” Beni said, mouth gaping open, pizza slice in a holding pattern.

  “Mr. Chang, here, says we do. Please find out more.”

  The day before, Kris just called up the station plans, and made no in-depth check on what they showed. Now Nelly checked for all plans and found one updated last just three weeks before Kris arrived.

  “Call up the standard plans for an A-class station when built. Compare the two,” Kris ordered.

  Nelly whistled. “Big difference, boss.” Apparently the sibling rivalry between her and the chief didn’t extend to shunning his language. Well, Kris couldn’t protect Nelly forever from the bad influences of the universe.

  Nelly overlaid the two plans. Kris concentrated on the important points . . . at first. The automatic machine guns she’d checked out the first day were, for the most part, not where the original plans had them. “Nelly, show me the 4-inch lasers.”

  They’d been moved, too.

  Central Net was now a machine shop. The network was located next door to the command center. “Interesting mods,” Kris said.

  “Looks that way to me,” Beni agreed, between the last bites of his pizza.

  “You look into that auxiliary power supply. I’ll check on how things are going on the Patton.” The afternoon shift was reporting. Whereas the morning crew was white-haired, gray, or bald, this bunch was tall, gangly, and noisy, with hair of many hues and voices that cracked at the most embarrassing times.

  “Did we get signed agreements to not hold the Navy responsible if they hurt themselves?” Kris asked several of the elders who seemed to be more in charge than usual.

  “Your computer gave us a form. We signed copies before we came aboard and sent copies down to their parents. Parental consents are all recorded with your computer.”

  I DID NOT JUST MAKE SURE THEY WERE HARMLESS WHEN I SAW THEM COMING. I MADE SURE THEY CROSSED THE LEGAL T’S AND DOTTED THE CORRECT I’S.

  NELLY, YOU ARE A JEWEL. Frequently.

  I HEARD THAT.

  GOOD. “I’m glad we have all those necessary legal matters covered,” Kris said and set about looking over everyone’s shoulders, which seemed to be a good junior officer’s job. But she found little need to offer advice. Each of the work details
was balanced, two or three youngsters in green shipsuits to an elder in blue. And if Kris found the paternalism of the POF irritating, the blatant hero worship and awe of the teenagers was just as hard to handle. Behind her she’d hear “Battleships” or “Mucho Grandest battle.” But let her turn face on to them and the kids got terminally silent or attacked by stutters.

  Course, as she left that group, there’d be some older voice pointing out, “She puts her pants on same as you. Don’t you let her fool you.” Which wasn’t fair. Kris wasn’t fooling anyone. It was their own delusion, their part in the Longknife legend.

  Chief Beni got the backup power going, and that helped with the power needs of both the work on the Patton and the station. Kris powered up a laser; it took the charge. But about drained her antimatter pod. Four days after her first trip to Last Chance, she filed a flight plan for a second trip. She needed antimatter, eggs, bacon, milk, coffee, fuses, peanut butter, and a few other things. Jack strapped in beside her, though Beni was only too happy to stay with “his” crews on “his” ship.

  Ron was a natural on her list of people to see. A lawyer, she wanted his official view on Nelly’s Hold Harmless agreement.

  “No question, that will hold up before any court here,” Ron assured her. “You’d be just as safe if you’d had them sign something like, ‘We’re doing this ’cause we want to. If we get hurt, it’s our own damn-fool fault.’ Kris, this isn’t Wardhaven. This is the Rim. We don’t let the lawyers tie us up in knots.”

  “Strange.” Kris smiled. “I’ve heard the same spiel from my father. Wardhaven is the Rim, you know.”

  Ron’s eyes and lips were fully engaged in a smile. Or was it a budding laugh. “Yes, but there is rim and there is the Rim. To us on the real Rim, Wardhaven is as hide-bound as Earth.”

  Kris chose to dodge the barb. “So I’m not risking the entire Wardhaven defense budget to a lawsuit. Now, can you tell me, or should I talk to Steve the Taxi Man about how someone totally redid the station. I thought with his limited crew he couldn’t move the lasers.”

  “He couldn’t have, if it was just him and his reservists. Chief, you want to tell the tale?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the former Personnel Chief for Naval District 41 said, coming into Ron’s office. Kris had left the good chair empty, expecting this development. Jack was already holding up his wall.

  “You have to realize, to you Wardhaven types, this is just Naval District 41, one of many. But to us, this is our Naval District.” The chief leaned back, put her legs up on the desk and made herself comfortable. “Now, it took me and my folks all of five minutes to figure out we were in trouble. Anyone with a set of plans for your standard class-A station could come along and scoop it up and we’d just be smears on the wall. Not the way I wanted this fine figure to end its days, I assure you.”

  Kris nodded as the woman laughed at her own joke.

  “But we were way too few to even move the machine guns. So, what do you do?”

  Kris raised an eyebrow at the rhetorical question.

  “Down on Chance, we had high-school kids that needed to do volunteer civic hours and had good grades in their shop and mechanics classes. We offered the best kids a chance to work on reorganizing the station’s automatic defenses. They and their teachers got free rides to orbit, a real fun project and free pizza. It also looked good on their first job applications.”

  “So that’s how my guns and computer got moved.”

  “Among other things, ma’am. Look your plans over carefully, there’re lots of surprises in them.”

  “And we didn’t just do this for the hard science students,” Ron said, jumping in. “The station’s walls provided all sorts of blank space for the art classes to cover.”

  “So the budding artists got a ride to orbit and a chance to see their planet from a whole new perspective,” Jack said.

  “Our local galleries have some really spectacular results of those trips to space,” Ron said proudly.

  “And the entire planet views that station as our station,” the chief finished.

  “So how did the planet take to having a Longknife move into your station?” Kris asked. The long empty pause that came told her all she needed to know. “I begin to see the problem I am. I have. We are all in.”

  “Kind of like that,” the chief said, standing.

  Ron eyed Kris. “I note that you scheduled your trip down for late in the afternoon. May I interest you and Mr. Montoya in dinner and a play. Our Little Theater has changed its playbill.”

  “You willing to be seen in public with me?” Kris was none too sure how she felt being this close to a buddy of Hank’s.

  “Public opinions on you are still out. Me, I try to keep an open mind.”

  “What’s the new play?” Jack asked.

  “The Pirates of Penzance.” Why was Kris not surprised.

  The dinner was delicious. The dancing was equally . . . pleasant. Jack really knew how to maneuver a woman around the dance floor. There was no reason why the ability to maneuver a woman out of tight and dangerous places should make that skill more or less likely. Still, it was nice to find.

  And Ron was not bad at all.

  The play was also pleasant. When the modern Major General finished his breathless boasting, Ron nudged Kris. “Kind of fits a modern Navy Lieutenant, don’t you think. Except you’d have to add twenty or more stanzas.”

  Not sure how to take it, Kris insisted, “Thirty-seven, at least, and no one would have the breath for it.”

  Kris spent much of intermission listening to couples’ happy reports that “their station” was keeping grandma off the streets, giving a son or daughter their first real work experience.

  Kris nudged Ron. “It’s still ‘our station,’ not that damn Longknife’s, huh?”

  Ron’s “You think so” sounded evasive.

  One old gal took Kris aside to say it was good to have the kids working on a warship, “They need to see things aren’t always as nice and quiet as they have recently been around here.” That took Kris by surprise; the woman wasn’t wearing a veteran’s pin.

  The woman leaned closer. “I lost my first husband in the war. He died fighting with your Great-grandfather Trouble on Muy V. Good man. Thank God I found one almost as good or I’d have gone crazy.” Kris gave the woman the hug she seemed to want.

  The ending of Pirates was just as Kris remembered it . . . contrived. “Problems aren’t settled that easily. Not if it’s real pirates or other nasties gunning for you.”

  “I won’t argue, Longknife,” Ron said. “But that still begs the question, why would anyone bother us? It’s been fourscore years since anyone tried to score. Why not fourscore more? Hank thought so.”

  Kris ignored that Hank reference. “Wardhaven wasn’t scored on for years. We were fighting for our lives four months ago.”

  “Point taken. Still, Lieutenant, don’t you think you and your father and the rest of your family were making yourselves more of a target than little old us?” Around them, a knot of people, more interested in the conversation than in leaving the theater, had gathered. Heads nodded at Ron’s point.

  Kris played her final card. “Some folks on Wardhaven considered our planet too sacred for anyone to attack. When the attack came, we were scrambling to defend ourselves. We barely managed to lash up enough of a ragtag-and-bobtail force to hold the line. I know. I commanded. And I attended the funerals of all those men and women who stood with me, and weren’t as lucky.” Kris looked around the ring of people watching, her lips gone thin. “When you are in desperate need, it’s no time to start looking to your defense.”

  There were nods for her, too. Agreement with Ron. Agreement with her. No movement to action. Kris swallowed a scream that would accomplish nothing and put her hand on Ron’s offered arm.

  “We should continue this thought,” someone said in the back. Kris didn’t see who. The crowd around them broke up into murmuring groups and made for the no longer cr
owded exits.

  “Kris, you see what you’re up against,” Ron said. “The vast majority of these folks are just starting to think about what you’ve been living with for what, the last two, three years. How long did it take you to switch your head out of the long peace?”

  “About five seconds, listening to an old woman tell how she’d been beat and raped, her husband murdered before her eyes.”

  Ron blanched . . . but he said nothing.

  Kris sighed, remembering. “But then my second in command didn’t buy in nearly as fast. It took him until later in the day to see that we needed to get serious about shooting back.”

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “He died at the Battle of Wardhaven.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kris let out a shudder. “So am I. I miss him very much.”

  “You want me to drop you back at your shuttle?”

  “Could we stop by a grocery store on the way. Jack, do you have the list?” Nelly, of course, did, along with several addendums, involving candy desired by some of the kids working with Beni. Or so he claimed. They were back at the station before eleven with two extra antimatter pods. There was still someone working on the Patton, or maybe that was a shift from a town on the other side of Chance. Kris went to bed.

  She spent the next two days checking out the changes to her station, and began to wonder what was taking Penny so long to rent a boat. Penny must have had the same feeling, because when Jump Point Alpha spat out a ship, it sent out a quick message, “I’m back,” and took off at one and a half g’s for the station.

  Kris and Jack were at the pier when the good ship Resolute docked. It wasn’t much to look at. Maybe three thousand tons built around an internal hold, crew and ship facilities, and tie-downs on the outside of the hull for containers. It was in need of paint. Scars showed where the ship had met the pier not nearly as smoothly as it did this time.

  Kris rode the escalator down the several hundred feet to the dock area, and ran into Abby leading ten steamer trunks toward the elevator. Kris watched Jack count them, and frown as he came up with the expected number. Maybe Kris truly was in for a quiet tour. Or Abby’s wonderful crystal ball was not in the know. Then again, Kris had been neck deep in plenty of pain when the count on Abby’s trunks was only twelve.