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  From what Captain Ajax had said, the feeling was recip- rocated.

  Chogan eyed Kris curiously. “I want to personally thank you for posting the full skinny on how to grow and install this crystal. I imagine it would have been a long time coming before Al Longknife let anyone in on the secret.”

  “Al Longknife is my grandfather, and no, he’s not at all happy with me,” Kris said.

  “Oh, does that mean Billy Longknife is your old man?”

  “Guilty on all counts.”

  “God help you, kid.”

  “They regularly beg the same indulgence for themselves when I’m around.”

  “I hear you’re headed back out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To the Peterwald Empire,” the CEO said.

  “That’s common knowledge, Kris,” Jack said.

  Kris just frowned. Apparently, assassins were not the only ones who knew where she was going.

  “I understand that the P. Royal will be carrying a lot more than just flag quarters,” the white-haired man said.

  “I tend to need a lot of support staff,” Kris said.

  “It must get mighty tight when you pull it all in for Condition Zed.”

  “We’ve managed to handle it fine,” Kris said. She eyed Jack. Where’s this conversation going?

  He kept an enigmatic smile on his face and said nothing.

  “I’d like to give you a gift, Your Highness. I don’t imagine you’re used to hardheaded business types offering stuff to you for free, but I want to.”

  Kris schooled her face to Navy bland and waited.

  “I’ve got a contract to wrap this ship and the Furious in crystal. That’s a given. However, it seems that between now and the time we finish this job, my fabs expect to deliver about ten thousand tons of Smart Metal as well as the crystal to protect it. That’s above and beyond what I’m contracted to deliver. Rather than save the leftover for the next ships I’m building, I’d like to put the extra Smart Metal and armor on your hull.”

  Kris wasn’t often taken by surprise, but he surprised her.

  “Are you asking me for a contract mod to pay you for the extra product?”

  “No, ma’am. I figure getting a contract mod through the process would take more time than you’ve got. I hear tell that things are mighty bad over in Peterwald space. True, it’s no skin off our nose, but I got a granddaughter who’s selling baked goods to send famine biscuits over there. She’s a kindhearted soul. Hard to tell she came from my loins, but maybe my son married better than I thought.”

  He chuckled at his joke. “Anyway, you need a bigger ship to do what you got to do, and I’ve got some extra Smart Metal and crystal to armor that extra space for you. I had my lawyers go over the law, and they found something down in the fine print that says I can give stuff to you for the defense of the realm, and you can accept it in the King’s name.”

  “Do you remember when we had all those folks on Chance turning the old Patton into a museum that could go to space?” Jack reminded Kris.

  “I thought they’d taken that law off the books after I actually took the Patton out for a fight,” Kris said.

  “It’s still there,” Chogan Cam said.

  Kris had sailed in several Wasps. They’d always been a bit larger to provide room for her attached staff, Marines, and boffins. She’d also fought the latest ones, taking them down to their tight Condition Zed. She’d always been on the bridge, doing what needed doing. She’d never seen how bad it was for the Marines and Sailors.

  They must have been cheek to jowl.

  Kris pulled herself up to her full regal self. “We would be happy to accept your gift to our protection and those of our subjects.”

  “Wow. I’ve never seen King Ray come all that royal on anyone,” Chogan said.

  “Well, if you’re giving me noble gifts, I should at least give you the full noble thank-you,” Kris said.

  The CEO stood. “Then, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be on my way to make this happen. I wish you the best of luck. You’re going to need all you can beg, borrow, or steal.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kris said, and watched him hurry on his way.

  “Nelly, are things quite as bad as he says they are?”

  “I’ve accessed all the reports, both those in the media and those Crossie’s corkscrew computers gave me access to. Kris, it’s bad. Starvation bad. Pirates bad. Battle lines fighting battle lines bad.”

  “What’s Vicky’s part in this?”

  “It’s hard to tell, Kris. I think she’s doing her best not to fire on any of the ships loyal to her dad. Ships flying the Empress’s flag are another matter. It appears they had a major battle at a place that you should remember, St. Petersburg.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Vicky’s side was outnumbered but was still winning. Likely, they’d have captured or killed the Empress.”

  “But?” Jack said.

  “The Emperor called a truce. That was when he announced that he wanted you to mediate between Vicky, him, and the Empress.”

  “Are we negotiating between two or three sides?” Kris asked.

  “That, Kris, is part of the question you will have to answer before you can begin mediating anything.”

  “Why does my head hurt?” Kris asked no one in particular.

  “What did you say about your mother? You can’t blow her up, and you can’t straighten her out?” Jack said, reminding Kris of her much younger comment on her family issues.

  After everything else the day had thrown at her, that night Kris found herself falling asleep once more aboard ship in her own familiar bed. It didn’t feel at all strange that the comfortable, soft mattress that Nelly formed for her was fluffed up, familiar Smart MetalTM.

  18

  The next day passed quietly for Kris. No doubt, she was residing in the eye of a hurricane that swirled and tossed around her, but she and Ruthie spent the day getting to know their new best friends. Beside Akumaa and Mai, there were Sally Greer, Shani m’Zuri, and Fede Radko. They all looked just old enough to have completed an enlistment but not by much.

  One trip to a shooting range Nelly made appear on the P. Royal showed that they were quite capable with pistols, assault rifles, and sniper gear. Shani and Fede were quite disappointed that they weren’t allowed to play with a 60mm mortar.

  Where the girls learned their child-care skills was an open question that none talked about.

  In charge of the five younger women was a hard-nosed, ramrod-backed woman of some thirty-odd years. Kris tried not to smile when one of the younger girls slipped up and called her Gunny. But Li O’Malley had the gentlest of hands when she bathed Ruth.

  Kris enjoyed a day of shaking down her child care while the spaces around them took solid form. The five gals chose to share a room. That gave them more space to share, and Nelly included a bath as luxurious as Kris and Jack’s. Gunny had her own room, off the commons. She spent most of her time with the gals.

  “If we’re all next door to the wee one’s room, we can be here in a flash if there’s any wee trouble,” Li said.

  What they would not allow was for Kris to keep Ruth in a bassinet next to her own bed. “You need your sleep,” Li insisted. “Ruth will be only a door away from you.”

  Strange how Gunnies managed to order flag officers around.

  It was a coin toss to see whether Ensign Longknife or Agent Foile got the room on the other side of the day quarters/flag plot. Since they were in space, Kris decided she wanted Meg closer. The three men had staterooms past her. Leslie, however, chose to have her room next to the nannies.

  More often than not, Leslie was with them and Ruth. Kris approved of the way that worked out.

  The mediators were quartered above Kris’s deck. Rather than the thirty-six Kris had expected, they totaled out
close to sixty. Nelly spent some time working with the computer experts on the team and came back with a list of material that she wanted to order for herself and Jack’s Sal.

  “I’ve been away from human space for two years and they’ve done all kinds of things. Kris, I have to keep up, or I’m going to be left behind.”

  “Are you really afraid of some computer becoming as magnificent as you?”

  “No, Kris, I see no evidence that any computer is up to writing the bad jokes I come up with. However, the self-organizing matrix is better and faster. I need an upgrade.”

  This time, Kris remembered to warn Captain Ajax that a very tiny and extraordinarily expensive package would be coming aboard. Still, the six Marine guards who escorted the delivery girl to Kris’s door seemed just as gobsmacked as her. Kris signed for the package, included a tip, and sent all seven on their way.

  That night, Kris had weird dreams as Nelly did her thing. The next morning, on the bed between Kris and Jack was a block of gray material.

  “You can probably give that to Meg, Li, and maybe Agent Foile. It can augment their present computers.”

  Kris studied the lump that looked like nothing more than clay and had Nelly divide it into three equal chunks. Meg got hers at breakfast.

  She stared at it cautiously. “Nelly wants me to have that?”

  “Yes, I do,” Nelly said.

  “Even after what I’ve been doing?”

  “What?” Kris asked, frowning.

  “Meg has been slipping into my net regularly to work with me,” Nelly answered. “Like when she needed help to process out the first three nannies.”

  Kris said nothing, just eyed the young Ensign Longknife.

  She shrugged. “I guess I should have asked permission. It’s just so automatic.”

  Kris raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay,” Meg said, raising her hands in surrender. “You know Grampa Ray once got in touch with the planet computer on Santa Maria, right?”

  Kris let silence answer her question.

  “Well, Gramma Alnaba inherited his bit of a brain bulge. It makes it easy for her to work on the little bits of the Grand Computer we run across now and again.” Meg paused to take a deep breath.

  “I seem to have inherited it, too. Even if I don’t try, I’m talking to any computer around me that has any wireless access.”

  Kris took a moment to process this surprise. “Nelly, you knew this?”

  “I suspected something like it. I didn’t know it until just now.”

  “What’s it good for?” Kris asked slowly.

  “Well, unless I’m careful, I know what will be on the next test. I aced the academy.”

  “Nelly, is she inside you right now?”

  “No,” came from both Nelly and Meg.

  NELLY, ABOUT THIS MATRIX. ARE YOU GIVING EACH OF THESE THREE ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN?

  NO, KRIS. THEY GOT THE MATRIX, BUT THEY’RE WORKING WITH THE KERNEL THAT ORIGINALLY CAME WITH THEIR COMPUTER. I’M STILL THINKING ABOUT SHARING MYSELF WITH THEM. LET’S SEE HOW THIS GOES. BESIDES, I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING WHILE WE’RE ON THE SAME PLANET WITH YOUR GRAMPA AL. I DO NOT TRUST HIM ANY MORE THAN I TRUST VICKY, HER DAD, OR HER STEPMOTHER.

  YOU’RE GETTING QUITE CYNICAL.

  IT MUST BE THE COMPANY YOU KEEP.

  Well, at least I’m not included in that, Kris thought.

  NOT YET.

  Kris eyed Meg. “So, I’m commanding a Longknife who is full of surprises.”

  “That’s kind of what Mac and Trouble said about you when they hauled me in for this assignment,” the ensign admitted.

  “You didn’t want it?”

  “It’s not that I didn’t want it. It’s just that the guy I’d been kind of dating at the academy put Alwa at the top of his wish list. I’ve lived at the hind end of nowhere. I’d like to try human space for a while.”

  “Go test out your new toy,” Kris said.

  At lunch, Meg was back, happy as a clam. Li got hers then, and Foile at supper. Next morning, he was quiet about the addition.

  That day was busier. Captain Ajax called a staff meeting with the other captains. The eight of them seemed a bit surprised to see the Forward Lounge. Kris was, too.

  The last time Kris had seen Bosun’s Mate 3/c Mary Fintch, they’d been prying her out of the helm seat of Kris’s wrecked first command, PF-109. She was one of the lucky ones who survived that fight.

  What Kris’s hadn’t known then was that Mary’s family had been in the restaurant business for generations, and Mary had used her disability bonus to get herself started in her own pub. Foolish girl, she’d jumped at a chance to ship out with Kris again and even talked her wife Robin Song into joining them.

  Foile’s background check on them was clean, as well as for the four cooks and equal number of bartenders who followed them aboard. The Marines who had been part-time waiters and waitresses on the Wasp’s Forward Lounge came over with their company and went right to work with hardly a blink.

  The squadron’s skippers settled around a table with Kris at its head, accepted cups of coffee, and listened while Nelly showed them what it was like to follow this damn Longknife into battle.

  Several blanched.

  “We’ll never survive all that banging around,” one was heard to murmur to his neighbor.

  “You’ll need to upgrade your high-gee stations,” Kris said. “That’s easy since they’re made of Smart Metal, and Nelly has the plans. Nelly, please produce a demonstration model.”

  A moment later, two rose from the deck, one on each side of the table. The skippers took turns trying them on and watching as they adjusted to their different sizes.

  “It’s best to wear your birthday suit when you get into one of these,” Kris said. “I always dismiss the crew to quarters to put these on, one-half or one-quarter of the watch at a time. You can try this out and make your own call.”

  “Does your computer control every station on the ship?” asked one captain.

  “No, each station is independent. Now, there’s more jinking around than you’re likely ready for. Nelly, give them a schematic of the standard battlecruiser and one modified to my requirements.”

  On the walls, the outline of a ship appeared with all the piping to the reaction motors in blue. Then a red coating appeared, complete with measurements.

  “Good Lord,” seemed to say it for all the skippers.

  “And you can do this while we’re in port getting our armor cladding?” Captain Ajax asked.

  “You’re lucky,” Kris said, with a chuckle. “You wouldn’t have wanted to be on the ships we first tried this on.”

  “You’re really going out loaded for bear, Admiral,” one captain said.

  “We’re going out there to try and persuade two, maybe three sides to stop their civil war. Someone has made three attempts to kill me and put an end to our mission before it starts. How loaded do you want to be?”

  That left the skippers in a thoughtful mood.

  “First point, I do not fire first,” Kris said, holding up a finger. “Second point, I don’t want to lose a ship or a Sailor. Last point, if someone starts the shooting, I intend to finish it. We’ve got twenty 22-inch lasers on each of our battlecruisers. Their best battleships have maybe twelve or sixteen 18-inch lasers.”

  Kris paused to let them consider that. “Whose shoes do you want to walk in?”

  That caused a long pause, then one captain raised her hand. “How much does your computer need to mess with mine to do all this?”

  “Nelly?” Kris said.

  “I can set up a specific subroutine that only interacts with your systems when it needs to. I can also give you back all the capacity I borrowed when I am done. If you wish, you can run a full set of diagnostics when I’m done and assure yourself that I left nothing behind.”
/>   “You’re quite polite,” Captain Ajax said.

  “Never to me,” Kris muttered.

  That got a laugh, and they got down to work.

  19

  Kris risked one more trip down the beanstalk to Main Navy.

  “Is there any chance I can have more ships?” she again asked Mac as she settled into one of his overstuffed armchairs.

  Mac just shook his head. “You’re not going to give up, huh?”

  “Not without one last try,” Kris said.

  “We’ve got four squadrons heading out for Alwa. You want to borrow one or two of those?”

  Kris could only shake her head. “You read my report. It’s not just Alwa we need to be looking after. Those cats on Susquan need taking care of, too, both to protect them from the alien raiders and themselves. Christ, Mac, they’ve got atomics on hair triggers.”

  “Well, they’re Sandy’s problem now. After reading your report, I’m amazed you got back here sane.”

  “Who said I did?” Kris said with a chuckle. “I’m letting Grampa Ray send me out on this crazy mission to Greenfeld.”

  “There is that. So, you want to steal from Sandy, or are you gonna settle for the eight I managed to peel off Wardhaven’s defense?”

  “Wardhaven?”

  “Yeah. Your old man is none too happy to have his tax money gallivanting off to pull Hal Peterwald’s chestnuts out of the fire.”

  “Is there ever enough?” Kris asked, giving voice to the question that had haunted her dreams for years now.

  “Hasn’t been since I put on this uniform. You’d have to ask Trouble or Ray if they ever had enough during the Iteeche dustup.”

  “Yeah,” Kris said. “Okay, you win on that one. Now, about the situation in Harry’s so-called Empire. All the intel I have goes galloping off in forty-eleven different directions. What’s your take of the situation?”

  The old field marshal shrugged. “What did someone once say of another planet? A question mark wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by fog, or something like that. We had a fellow come through here, claiming to be from the Grand Duchess. He wanted to buy some spidersilk underarmor. I think your Gramma Trouble arranged for him to have something to take back. Our contacts in the Greenfeld Navy say that a lot of it has sided with Victoria against her stepmother. It’s kind of hard to know much about Greenfeld on good days, and it’s been a while since they had one.”