“Mother, you know those grandkids you keep talking about. Well, I think you just blew a major opportunity.”
“Sorry, son, but the liberty launches are due in soon and we don’t have half the busses we’re supposed to. I talked to Mike and he said we’ve got all the ones he’s managed to clean up after last night. Can you get on it?”
Ron waved for the check, and signed it, then stood to go. “You’ll excuse me. Jack, don’t dance the feet off her.”
Kris rose from her only half-eaten meal. “Where we headed?”
And so Kris ended up cleaning busses and getting them to the airport on time. In high heels and without messing her cocktail dress. Not a bad start to an evening. The upside was that Kris found an industrial-strength tar remover to send to the Highland Games that night, just in case she decided to toss a caber.
The downside was that she was still hanging around the busses when it became clear the liberty launches were coming in faster than last night and that they’d never get as many busses as they had the night before.
So Kris ended up at the port as the launches came in. “I’d prefer you sit this out in Marta’s Ops center,” Jack suggested.
“But you’re my security chief, I can’t go anywhere without you, and you have to drive a bus.” Kris managed not to coo. Not really. Jack said a very bad word.
“Besides, this is what OCS calls a leadership challenge.”
“You’re being challenged by five hundred woman-starved sailors of a very hostile confederation.”
“True, Jack, but what girl can pass up having five hundred men hanging on her every word.” Jack said more very bad words.
Jack parked his bus, behind Ron’s, at the end of a not very long line. Ron dismounted as Kris walked by him. “How stiff are the rules about not standing in the bus?” she asked.
“We usually won’t move a bus before everyone is seated, and belts buckled. However, the decision to board a loaded bus and stand is one for the citizen to make, not the government.”
“You mean if the sailors want to load onto these,” Kris counted, “ten busses, all five hundred incoming can get to the Oktoberfest on time. If not, they wait to catch the next one.”
“That’s it.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” And it wouldn’t have been except for those older “able seamen.” The chiefs and senior petty officers were the first off the liberty launches and first onto the busses. So much for tradition. The rest raced off, shouting and acting like kids on the last day of school. There was much pushing and shoving to get on the busses, nothing like the orderly standing in line that was featured on all movies coming out from Greenfeld space. Ah well, they’re away from home.
Kris moved among the sailors, urging calm in that command voice she’d been taught. There was plenty of room. She was only groped once in the press. She said nothing, but replied with lethal elbows. After that, sailors made way for “The Princess.”
Things seemed to be going well once they got on the busses . . . until a fist fight broke out on the second bus over who got the last seat. Strange that the able seaman involved looked rather old for his rate. “Boys, boys,” Kris called as soon as she was on the bus. “That old nanny looks so tired. You don’t want to make an ancient nag like her stand now, do you.”
“He hit me,” the younger one said. Strange how the older one didn’t seem all that interested in slipping into the seat now.
“Why don’t you settle it at the caber toss,” Kris said. “That old grandmama hardly looks like she can beat a spry young man like you. Hey, as soon as we get this settled, we can get this bus rolling for the beer.” The other sailors shouted to get moving. The older “able seaman” slunk into the seat, avoiding her eyes.
Kris eyed the chiefs and petty officers in the front rows. Their eyes were locked straight ahead as if they were at attention. Following their orders? Kris dismounted, and waved the bus off. There was a fight on the fifth one; she climbed aboard and called, “Atten-hut,” and it evaporated. “If you have any more trouble,” Kris told the driver in a carrying voice, “Just pull over to the side. I’ll be in the last bus.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“You going to toss that pole again tonight for us?”
“Be one of those to make a winning toss and see what I give you,” Kris said mysteriously.
She dismounted, scrupulously not hearing loudly muttered hopes, and waited for Jack to pull up to her. “You have any problems with this crew?” she asked Jack. He grinned and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. Six Greenfeld Marine sergeants in undress black and greens sat in the front seats. Behind them, as silently deadly as you’d want a Marine to be, were forty-five NCOs and privates. Kris nodded at the senior sergeant, who kept eyes forward and ignored her as he well could a civilian . . . and after all, his planet didn’t recognize nobility. Kris kept her place, standing beside the front door. “Follow those buses, Lieutenant. If any of them pull off, please do likewise.”
“Aye, aye, Your Highness,” Jack said, and put the bus in gear, maybe not as smoothly as a professional, but better than at least a few.
“Ma’am,” came from behind Kris. While Kris might be a civilian and unrecognized royalty, she was a woman, and Greenfeld was old-fashioned about that. The junior Gunny Sergeant present rose to give Kris his seat behind Jack.
“Thank you,” she said and took it, ignoring the shuffling out behind her as a corporal gave up a seat to the sergeant, and a private ended up standing so the corporal could sit.
The drive into town went smoothly, with no stops.
14
Little Steve waited at the Beergartens to take them to the cocktail party. Kris found herself a bit of a celebrity. Being a Longknife or a princess hadn’t impressed these folks. But make a caber toss that MacNab praises and suddenly, everyone wants to shake your hand.
Oh, and thank her for keeping the sailors under control.
Which only confirmed Kris’s suspicion that rank wasn’t something you could confer here. It had to be earned. She was glad she didn’t have to do much more than toss a tree to earn these folks’ respect. Of course, the younger men didn’t need much encouragement to ask her for a dance. She was on her fourth or fifth when Captain Slovo gallantly cut in.
“Did you enjoy your dinner with the young man?”
“Actually, I ended up back at the airport. They had trouble getting enough clean busses out for tonight’s liberty party. Your crew last night left quite a mess.”
“I hope you didn’t leave tonight’s party cooling their heels at the port?”
Kris measured the question and found it sincere, if lacking in surprise. Did he and boy wonder upstairs discuss this possibility? “It was standing-room only, but we made it.”
“You are quite a young woman.”
“We Longknifes do what we have to do,” she said, keeping a smile on her face, but letting the steel show around the eyes.
“Yes, yes you do. You are making quite an impression on Captain Krätz. His wife has presented him with four girls. Sadly, no boys. I think just the sight of you is inciting the poor man to treason.”
“Change doesn’t have to be treason,” Kris said. “Sometimes it is good for you.”
“Pardon me, Princess, but I believe I’m here to show our flag, not to salute yours.”
“Anytime you take the boys off the farm, you run the risk they won’t want to go back.” They danced in silence after that.
Kris tagged along with Captain Slovo when the dance ended. At the captain’s table she asked, “Captain Krätz, do you dance?”
Slovo shot her an ugly glare, but the other captain accepted Kris’s hand and followed her to the dance floor.
“You know, I shouldn’t be dancing with you,” Georg said. “You can’t be too much older than my first daughter.”
“Is she done with her college education?” Kris asked.
“Our women rarely go to college, but she is in her final year at the Gymnasium. She
will graduate as a certified nurse.”
“Does she plan to go Navy?”
“I hear her talking to her mother about that. I hope she won’t. Too often, our young men, even officers, are not fit company for a young woman.”
“If a woman is smart, she can often hit them up upside the head, knock some decency into them.” Kris said lightly.
“As you did last night with that pole?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And it still does,” the captain said. “I can’t tell you how many times in the last few days I’ve found myself wondering if my daughter would not make you a very good subordinate.”
“I’d be glad to have her.”
“Now some might take an offer like that to be sedition. Are you asking her father to suggest to the young woman that she desert her proper place in Greenfeld society?”
“Human space is big. Many people move about, hunting for their proper place.”
“Just as you have. Yes, I have seen your file. You do a lot of moving. Don’t you ever find yourself wanting to settle down in one place. Raise a family?”
“Now who’s trying sedition?” Kris laughed.
“Shall we call ourselves even? I see your Marine looking worried. If I nod his way, I expect he will cut in.”
“You better nod.”
A moment later, she was in Jack’s arms and he was dancing her away from the Greenfeld contingent. “Is there trouble?”
“Big trouble,” Jack said through a smile.
“I think I need to go powder my nose,” Kris said.
“I’ll be waiting outside with little Steve.”
Kris excused herself. Those who might have intercepted her recognized the direction of her flight. It only took two wrong turns for Kris to find herself out front. Jack was holding the door open. She slipped into the limo; Jack jumped in and Steve took off. “Where are we headed, the Beergarten?”
“Nope, the college.”
“College?”
“Sailors ran into a couple of coeds,” Jack said, “coming back from the library. They offered money to look at their boobs. Seems there’s a really bad movie making the rounds of Greenfeld stag parties about how girls in Wardhaven space earn their living by flashing.”
“Ouch,” Kris said.
“Girl slapped him,” Steve Jr. took over. “Big girl. Small sailor. Sailor started to knock her around. The girls yelled. The girl’s soccer team was just coming back from practice. They jumped in and the sailors hollered for help. Lot of sailors came running, but a whole lot of college boys did, too.”
“How big a riot?” Kris asked.
“Big,” Jack said.
“Very big according to my source,” the young cabby said.
“Step on it,” Kris said.
“You bet,” Steve Jr. said. Jack cringed as, if it was possible, the drive got even wilder. They came at the college from a different street, avoiding the Oktoberfest. Steve Jr. drove up to the yellow No Entrance tape and waved at an armband who lifted it. The limo followed the flow of interested bystanders until the press grew too thick, then they got out and joined it. It was only a short walk to the next tape. Kris ducked under it, Jack waved off a youngster who squawked at their violation of his orders, and they soon found Gassy standing over three long lines of sailors, facedown on the grass, hands string-cuffed behind them. Not a few of them had bloody noses and blackening eyes.
Off to the left, a few armbands surrounded a large, milling crowd of young men; college boys from their dress. Far off to the right, a lot more armbands walked another yellow tape keeping an angry group of maybe twice as many sailors away from their buddies on the ground. Ron trotted around a stone-faced college building across the way and headed for Kris.
Sailors quickly recognized Kris. “What kind of shit are you throwing now, Princess,” someone said. She ignored the catcalls that came with it.
“Ron, you have enough people for this?”
“Kris, I don’t have anywhere near enough people to keep my people from tearing these guys apart. Chance is very much a frontier world. We respect our women. This . . .” He glanced to Kris’s right and now she could see a small medical station set up behind the college men. Several women were being treated for cuts to their faces; bruises on their legs and torsos. A few were holding their tops in place. They’d been ripped off. One woman was sobbing. Another fixed Kris and Ron with an icy glare.
Kris scowled. “Nelly, connect me to Hank on his flagship.”
“Trying, Your Highness,” Nelly said formally. “I’m having to talk to a duty officer. This may take longer than usual.”
“Keep at it. Don’t say why I’m calling, just that Commander, Naval District 41, requires a talk with him.”
“No,” Ron said. “The Mayor of Last Chance requires a conversation with him. This is my job, Kris.”
Kris could recognize a jurisdictional dispute when it slapped her in the face. Complicating it was the “Me boy, you girl” thing, as well. “We’ll do it your way,” she said.
Almost a full minute later, Nelly brought Hank up on audio, no visual. “Mayor Torn, why are you interrupting my evening?”
“We’ve had a riot involving some of your sailors down here.”
“Well, put them in the liberty launches to sober up. No, lay them out beside the launches. I understand they really stank the boats up last night.”
“These attacked some women,” Ron said.
“Well, boys will be boys. No bones broken were there?”
Ron had not looked away from the young woman’s glare. Neither had Kris. “No. No broken bones.”
“Then no problem. They’re sailors. Only looking for a little fun. If this was a Wardhaven fleet visit, things wouldn’t be any different.”
Ron closed his eyes, his teeth gritted together. Silently he gave Kris a brief wave.
“If a Wardhaven ship was in port, we’d have our own Shore Patrol out making sure our sailors behaved. Where are your SPs, Hank?” Kris demanded.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were there, Lieutenant. You know how it is, the fleet’s scattered thin, budgets are shrinking, and citizens are complaining about high taxes. What with the expansion and us having to protect so many planets from the pressures some people apply on other people. It’s a struggle. We can’t afford useless specialties. We need every hand working. Work hard. Play hard.” And Hank cut the line.
Ron reached for thin air like he wanted to choke the life out of it. “I always knew the guy was shallow, but this.” He shook his head. “That settles it. The next drunk that won’t take no from one of our women is going to jail and will face one of our commissioners tomorrow. I’ve had enough!”
“Hank won’t like that.”
“I don’t like this. Time he had something not to like.”
Kris turned her back on the line of sailors and lowered her voice. “This could be exactly what he’s wanted all along.”
That stopped Ron. “Yeah? You think this could be the basis for that putsch you’ve been hinting at since he got here.”
Kris shrugged. “It doesn’t take a crystal ball. They send six cruisers for a port call where one would do. You have to assume they’ve got a change of government on their agenda.”
“Let me make a few calls. See just how many reinforcements I’ll have here tomorrow. If I’m going to walk off this cliff I’m being shoved over, I want company.”
“You’ll have mine,” Kris said.
“Why does that not surprise me.” Ron had not broken eye contract with the injured woman the whole time he’d been talking to Hank, and then Kris. Now he walked over to the aid station. Kris followed him; he had a hard duty ahead of him. So did she.
Ron paused a few feet from the women, took a deep breath and said simply, “I’m sorry.”
“Where was the Safety Patrol?” the woman demanded.
“I don’t know. They had a lot of stuff to do, but I’ll find out what went wrong.”
&n
bsp; “You put a bunch of drunk sailors too bloody close to our dorms,” the woman shot back. Those around her nodded agreement.
“That was my mistake. We didn’t spot that in our planning,” Ron admitted.
“None of us did,” Kris added softly.
“I didn’t think you Longknifes ever made mistakes,” a woman from somewhere in the back said.
“We’re not permitted little ones,” Kris said. “Only really bad ones like this.”
“Will we get more security?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Ron said. “We’re flying in more from the other cities. We’ve about maxed out our people here.”
“You better get them here,” the woman said. “When I leave the dorm tomorrow, I’ll be carrying a baseball bat. Any sailor that gets in my way will be looking for his head about three hundred meters thataway.” There were murmurs of agreement. Kris kept her mouth shut. There was no use telling the women that that kind of incident was exactly what these poor sailors’ commodore was looking for.
Ron turned to the college boys. There were a few girls in the circle, mostly in soccer uniforms. “You all know that you should be facing a Commissioner of the Peace tomorrow morning.”
That brought a lot of muttered responses. “We were only protecting the girls,” said the loudest.
“I know,” Ron said, raising both hands for quiet. “And I’ll have to take these sailors out to their boats and dump them in a couple of minutes.” The dismay at that brought silence.
“So I’m going to turn all of you loose after we get the sailors out of here. But make no mistake. I know who you are. You do this again, and you will be talking to a commissioner, and not Momma Okaloska, either. If you want to help us keep the coeds safe, talk to Mr. Gasçon about getting an armband.” From the noise, it sounded like most would take that offer.
Kris turned back to the sailors on the deck. Now a couple of med techs, all male, were walking gingerly among them, looking at noses; looking for other damage. Most seemed minor.
“They’re your problem, Commander,” Ron said.
Now Kris was the one not surprised. “Listen up. I command Naval District 41, and I rule that station your ships are hanging on to. In a moment, my Marine Lieutenant will pass among you, getting each name and ID. If you show your face on my station, I will lock you in my brig. Don’t even think about getting another liberty down here.” That brought a muttering of wounded innocence, but Kris stepped down hard.
Kris Longknife: Resolute Page 26
