Daring

by Mike Shepherd

  Which left Kris’s royals the least represented.

  The Constant Star was a late addition to the Helvitican Fleet. Even though it was leased at Wardhaven, Kris knew nothing of the captain and crew. Just as bad, the Mercury was a recently captured pirate schooner crewed from the Wardhaven, er U.S. Navy. Still, the captain and crew were a blank to her.

  “Commander Taussig,” Kris said.

  “Right here, Your Highness,” Phil said, standing from where the other skippers of PatRon 10 were over near the bar. The other ships of the squadron were dry, just like the rest of the fleet.

  The Wasp, however, was different. With its mixed crew of civilians and service personnel, there were several contractormanaged restaurants and public rooms. Kris had never felt the need to place those watering holes off-limits to any of her crew. Indeed, she’d often used the Forward Lounge for semiofficial purposes, just like now.

  Most of the visiting Navy folks had taken advantage of the bar already; her skippers were no exception.

  “Phil, I got a job for you.”

  “Mother of God help me.”

  Kris smiled at his reply but went ahead with her orders. “Please form a detail from the Hornet and establish a Royal presence on the Constant Star. I’m holding you personally responsible for seeing that everything on that tub is turned over to the Institute for Alien Studies.”

  Phil nodded. “You got an inventory for me?”

  “Yes, we do, Kris,” Nelly reported, “though it’s kind of vague in several places.”

  “Understood. Pass it to Phil.”

  “I’ve got it, Commander,” he said in a moment.

  That settled one set of problems. Phil Taussig came from a long line of Navy admirals in both Wardhaven and several other Rim world Navies. He would not be allowed to go missing. If he disappeared, there would be hell to pay until a full explanation was made.

  Kris didn’t want a posthumous accounting for Phil’s family, she wanted to reduce the temptation for anyone to even try.

  “Lieutenant Song,” she called.

  A startled young woman jumped to her feet and braced. She’d been an ensign on one of the fast patrol boats that defended Wardhaven when six unidentified battleships showed up and demanded Wardhaven’s surrender. On one of the few that survived. If Kris couldn’t trust someone who’d fought with her at the Battle of Wardhaven, whom could she trust?

  “I want the Hermes to take over as the courier ship back to Santa Maria. You will place your ship at Commander Taussig’s disposal.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Your Highness,” she said, snapping a salute. Indoors. Uncovered. And sat down.

  Kris often had that impact on the young. The ensign would get over it in time. People who served with a Longknife did.

  If they survived the experience.

  “You have any questions, Phil?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said easily. “Get the wreckage back to Santa Maria. Turn it over to the Institute. Leave the hassling to the civilians. May I suggest that I contract for any ships and supplies that I can find in Santa Maria orbit and get them moving out here with me and the Hermes?”

  “Logistics is always the first order of business,” Kris said.

  Beside her, Colonel Cortez mouthed the same words himself and smiled. Kris was learning.

  A glance around the room showed a lot of Navy officers who’d gnawed enough on this bone and were ready to get gone. Kris asked the usual final question of a meeting. “Anything further to discuss?”

  Most everyone shook their heads. In the back of the room, Professor mFumbo stood up.

  “Professor. Do you have something to add?”

  “Not to what has been said, Your Highness. But I would like to draw the attention of everyone present to certain portions of the reports my scientists have put together. It might be unnecessary. All of you may have read every deathless word of prose we men and women of science have laid before you. Then again, you might not have.”

  Kris noticed eyes around the room already glazing over.

  “Please go on, Professor.” Quickly.

  He must have read her mind. “Something or someone stripped away ten to fifteen percent of the mass of this gas giant. They did it in the last fifty to a hundred years.”

  Glazed eyes suddenly opened wide. The room got very quiet.

  “Those are our findings based on the strange situation of this gas giant and its moons. I should hedge that statement with careful scientific nuances. It might have lost eight percent. It could have lost twenty percent. It could have suffered this strange reduction as recently as forty years ago or it might have happened one hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “What you are saying,” Kris said, “is that something took very big bites out of that gas giant within my grampa Ray’s lifetime.”

  The professor nodded. “Bites the size of three to seven Earths. Yes, that is what I and my boffins are trying to tell you.”

  Kris let that sink in. She let the silence stretch for a while because, at least in her head, it was not sinking in. It floated, like a yellow ducky in her bathtub when she was a kid. Only this yellow ducky was huge, and there was no way she could shove it under the water.

  Her thoughts spun. What finally came out was No. Not possible. It can’t be happening to me and my world.

  With effort, she limited her gibbering to the inside of her own skull.

  KRIS, THIS IS APPALLING.

  ME HAVING TROUBLE BELIEVING IT?

  NO, KRIS. WHAT HE JUST SAID.

  YES, NELLY, THIS IS APPALLING, Kris agreed, accepting her computer’s understatement and failing to find anything better, or was it worse, to offer Nelly.

  Kris had no idea when the full impact of this would be absorbed. Probably, it was best to end this meeting and let people go their own ways to digest this new lump of knowledge.

  “Is there anything else in your report you want to make sure we notice?” Kris said. Say no. Say no. Please say no.

  “Yes, there is one more thing.”

  Stupid me. Ask a question, and you’ll get the answer you don’t want.

  “Go on, Professor.”

  “We have established that there were 132 people on the alien ship. We think we have drawn up an accurate schematic of its design.” The professor aimed his wrist unit at the main screen and it switched away from where it was frozen on the final frame of the explosion.

  Suddenly, the ship was whole again. Quickly, the skin of the ship peeled back, showing the insides: living quarters, work spaces, storage rooms, the bridge. Most of those areas were left empty in the drawing, but their purposes were written in.

  “On that ship, there were about twelve cubic meters of pressurized living space for each of the men, women, and children aboard.”

  “Sleeping quarters two meters by three meters by two meters tall,” Kris said. It was about a quarter of her own living quarters. “Ugh.”

  “Pardon me for correcting you, Your Highness,” the professor said. “I did not say sleeping quarters. That allotment is the total room for their sleeping and wash space. It includes their contribution to their work spaces, public rooms, and hallways. We’re still debating whether or not they even had hallways. Even in the command center.

  “The only space not included in this allotment was a small hold full of rare-earth ores recently extracted from the moon. That hold and Engineering. That would include the reactors and the pressurized tanks for reaction mass. I should point out that we found several bunks in Engineering in what we think was the control room.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Vicky said.

  Around Kris, the room bubbled at a low boil as, once again, people struggled to come to terms with what any rational human being would consider impossible.

  It was Penny who slowly rose to her feet. She went to touch the ship on the screen. The Navy officer whispered something that Kris didn’t get, but apparently Mimzy, Penny’s computer, did.

  An image of the gas giant appeared on the screen w
ith the alien ship. On the screen, the giant regained ten percent of its mass, swelling noticeably.

  “What kind of species could suck up ten percent of a gas giant? Then, having that kind of reaction mass to move themselves and their creation, would cram their population into a ship, allowing only twelve cubic meters to an individual?”

  The room fell silent as Penny spoke.

  When she finished, there was a pause. A brief one. Then the room exploded as a number of people made off quickly for the restrooms.

  Others headed for the bar, giving loud voice to their need for a drink.

  14

  Kris sat in her chair, staring off into space. Literally. The forward screen was back to the view from the external monitors. Stars flew by. The moon occasionally came into view. More often, the gas giant that had caused this struggle with cognitive dissonance made its own appearance.

  It had been a long time since Kris had been tempted, really tempted, to order a drink. So far she was winning.

  Still, she wouldn’t take a bet that she would be sober come midnight.

  The senior NCOs aboard the Wasp made sure that none of the junior enlisted abused the privilege of the ship’s pubs. The problem was, there were only officers in the Forward Lounge at the moment, officers from four different Navies. From the looks of empties piling up on some tables, adult supervision was desperately needed.

  “Jack, inform the barkeep the limit tonight is three drinks.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. We’re a long way from a brewery, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a new supply anytime soon.” He shoved off for the bar.

  Kris wouldn’t take any bets that there weren’t several stills in her fleet. She also wouldn’t recommend that any of the captains in her Fleet of Discovery do a serious shakedown of chief’s country. Still, it was clear she needed to limit how people responded to the shock they’d all just taken to their system.

  Vicky came over to Kris’s table. She cast a worried glance over her shoulder toward Admiral Krätz but said nothing.

  The admiral was one of those with several empties in front of him. Kris was a bit surprised at that. Still, the man had a family. He was looking forward to grandkids. He had talked of retirement.

  What kind of enemy had they just stumbled into? How large a fleet and army could they muster? Kris’s mind still boggled at trying to answer those questions.

  “Is it as bad as it seems?” Vicky asked.

  Kris ran a worried hand through her hair. “I don’t know. Maybe we should turn around, run back to human space, pull in the welcome mat, and hide under the bed. Who knows how long it would be before whatever it is out here stumbles across us?”

  “That is one option,” Ron said. In a fashion, the three of them were seated at Kris’s table. The two that Kris was familiar with took in the scene with some equilibrium. The Army fellow was showing red alarms around his residual gill slits. Occasionally, Ted would lean over and say something to him in Iteeche.

  Nelly told Kris that the Iteeche Navy officer was telling the Army officer that it was all right. Things would work out.

  It didn’t seem to be working for the Army guy. It sure wasn’t working for Kris.

  The urge to run away and hide under a bed was very attractive. The thirst to crawl into a bottle and forget the future had new allure.

  “You damn Longknifes have murdered us all.” Like a bloody meat cleaver, that bellow cut through the noise of the room.

  Kris and Vicky swung around in their seats to face Admiral Krätz. He stood at his table, swaying like a drunken bear. He swept the table with one large hand; empties flew off in the lazy arc of half a gee. Some shattered as they hit the deck. Most just landed and rolled.

  The admiral pointed at Kris’s table. “You damn Peterwalds and double-damned Longknifes can’t mind your own business. What is it with you? You damn near got us wiped out with your bleeding Iteeches. Now you just had to go and find something bigger, meaner, badder.”

  For a long moment, the admiral just snarled at Kris and Vicky. Then a shudder went through him. “And my girls will never hold their babies. My grand little ones will never see the light of day.”

  A wracking sob escaped the admiral.

  Kris rose from her seat and took two steps toward the drunk officer. With a glance, she caught the attention of the Fury’s captain.

  “Captain, I think you need to take your admiral home.”

  The captain reached for the arm of his commander. Admiral Krätz shook him off.

  “Don’t you go giving my officers orders.”

  “Then you give them,” Kris snapped. “We’ve got problems enough. You’re not going to find any answers to them in the bottoms of those glasses. Go to your ship. Sleep it off. Tomorrow, we’ll put our sober heads together.”

  “Come, Admiral. Let’s go,” the captain said.

  The large contingent from the Greenfeld fleet made a hole for their admiral, then followed him out the door.

  “I’ve never seen him like that,” Vicky said, coming up to stand beside Kris.

  “He likely has never had a night this bad,” Colonel Cortez said, joining them. “It is one thing to face battle against odds you can gauge, maneuvers you can counter. It’s something else entirely to face the unknown and know that you can’t protect those you love and hold dear.”

  The colonel paused for a moment. “I’m none too sure how I feel about all this.”

  “I don’t think any of us are,” Kris admitted. She caught the eye of the senior bartender. “Let’s close down for the night.”

  “Last call?” someone asked hopefully.

  “No, honey. Drink up. We’re rolling up the floor,” the barkeep answered.

  Vicky hurried off to catch the last launch from the Wasp to the Fury. Kris turned to Ron. “Shall I take you to your quarters? I understand nothing’s changed.”

  “That would be very gracious of you,” Ron said. “Though I should point out, I well remember the path from your Forward Lounge to my quarters. I suspect I could even find my way without all your scientists marking the path, waiting in line to pose questions for me.”

  “Was it that bad?” Kris asked.

  The press at the door was almost gridlock. Kris and her team waited for others to file out. Since the admirals hadn’t demanded that sailors of different fleets make a hole for them, Kris didn’t think she should.

  Penny nudged Kris. “We’re not moving all that much. Any chance we could grab a chair, sit down, and talk a bit about what all this means?”

  Kris shook her head. “Penny, this is just too much for me. I’ve got to sleep on it. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

  Penny didn’t seem happy with Kris’s decision, but she said nothing more.

  Ron was interested in how Kris had spent her time since he left. It took her mind off the present to describe the fun of chasing pirates and claiming new territory . . . for the hostile Peterwald Empire.

  He considered that funny . . . and time better spent than his own. He’d been locked down in the Imperial Palace. He was required to be available on five-minute notice to meet with several very important committees. He was required to wait upon them . . . but in the end they never called him for a personal report.

  He brought his hands together and moved his four thumbs in circles around each other. “Do you have a saying like that?”

  “Twiddling your thumbs?” Kris said with a laugh, as she and her team finally passed through the doors from the Forward Lounge into the passageway that led aft.

  The next moment an explosion threw Kris against Ron.

  Jack crashed into her back and they all ended up in a heap on the deck.

  Behind them, the swinging doors of the Forward Lounge blew out. Immediately, the airtight doors slammed shut and clanged as they locked down.

  “Hull Breach,” the public-address system announced. “Hull Breach in the Forward Lounge.”

  15

  Kris scrambled back to her
feet. Jack tried to push her aft, but the passageway was a solid mass of people, all trying to regain their feet and move in the same direction.

  Preferably at the same time.

  Kris edged her way around Jack so she could get a better view through one of the small vision plates in the airtight doors.

  All she saw was smoke. Something had exploded. Some of the furniture had caught fire. The smoke didn’t last long as both air and smoke were sucked out through several rents in the hull.

  One body, Kris hoped he was already dead, went with the smoke.

  The checkered tabletops, however, were also doing their job. Some had caught fire. But others held their circular form and rode on the blasting air currents toward the rents in the ship’s structure. On the ceiling, valves opened, releasing globs of sealant that also rode the wind torrents to help the deforming tabletops shore up the holes.

  All this was done quickly enough that the other bar crew were able to keep their holds on whatever they had grabbed and avoid being sucked out into the cold vacuum.

  “Pressure has been stabilized in the Forward Lounge. Make way for damage control parties. Clear the passageways for damage-control parties,” the ship’s computer repeated.

  “Kris,” Jack said.

  “Yes, yes,” Kris said, backing up and taking the first turn off the main passageway so that a dozen sailors in space suits carrying gear could pass her.

  “Penny. Penny,” Kris called.

  The cop’s daughter was at her elbow in a moment.

  “That was no accident,” Kris said. “Get a forensic team together from Jack’s Marines. By breakfast tomorrow morning, I want to know what went down in there.”

  “No sleep for the wicked,” Abby said with a smile for the Navy officer who’d just been ordered to do an all-nighter.

  “Abby,” Kris said.

  “I was just headed for bed,” her maid replied.

  “You’ve been getting lazy, what with no one trying to kill me,” Kris said, reaching for her maid’s elbow. “Looks like someone just did. Or maybe they were aiming for Vicky. Or someone else. You’re the spy. You tell me what the game is this time and who’s calling the shots.”