Daring

by Mike Shepherd

  “Ew, to use Cara’s word,” Abby said. “Disgusting but hardly interesting.”

  “Professor, that boatload of people who attacked us,” Penny went on quickly, “did they have the normal sanitation facilities?”

  “It would be impossible to run a spaceship otherwise,” the professor said. “Yes, we did find what looked like bathrooms. Not at all private. One of our engineers was very interested in finding their recycling and water-reclamation system, but we could not identify it in the wreckage.”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” the colonel said. “They have shipboard sanitation, if only by rote, but they so rarely go dirt-side that they’ve forgotten how to do it there.”

  “Yes,” Penny said.

  “Space raiders who only make landfall to pillage and don’t do that often enough to remember the basics,” Ron the Iteeche said in conclusion.

  “It’s not like they gave the locals a fighting chance,” the colonel went on. “Flatten them with nukes or rocks, then gas those that are still raising objections. Viciously effective, though.”

  “I think there’s one more thing we need to highlight,” Kris said. Her team waited as she took a deep breath. “We’ve called them homicidal maniacs, because, from our perspective, that’s what they look like. However, to them, I suspect their actions are quite logical. The question is, logical to what?”

  “We’ll only be guessing,” the professor said.

  “But I think we need to have some guesses,” Ron said. “I certainly will need to put some in my report.”

  “The individual doesn’t seem to matter much,” Kris went on. “They cram themselves into ships far beyond what we would put up with. Even when they get a chance to go dirtside, their huts are small and they load six people into a tiny room.”

  “That worries me,” the colonel said. “Quantity has a quality all its own, someone brilliant once observed.”

  “Yes,” Kris said. “They attack without warning. Without reflection. They come in large numbers, and they can strip a planet and even a solar system.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Kris said, “I don’t think humanity has much of a choice. We have met the enemy, and it’s going to be a bitch.”

  Kris tapped her commlink. “Captain, set course for where we left the battleships. I think we’ve got enough to make our report to the king.”

  25

  “So good to see you, Your Highness,” Admiral Krätz said, as soon as the Wasp jumped back into the system where the battleships waited. “A messenger packet has arrived from your king. You are ordered home immediately.”

  The admiral made no effort to suppress his glee.

  “Fine,” Kris said. “I’m ready to report to him.

  The admiral’s grin vanished. “You’re not going to argue?”

  “Nope. I’ve already drafted my report. One that I think all human space needs to see. Would you like a copy?”

  “Of your report?”

  “Yes, Admiral, my report.”

  “I guess I should look at it.”

  “After you read the report, you might want to crank up your battleships and go take a look at what we found.”

  “I doubt it,” the Greenfeld admiral said, but his eyes were on something offscreen. He was quiet for a long moment, then frowned. “They strip-mined an entire planet!”

  “Down to its water and air. Massacred the intelligent civilization that had grown up on the planet. We’re debating whether they attacked the planet despite the civilization present or because of it. Hard to tell from the evidence.”

  The admiral seemed torn for a moment, but then he shook his head. “We admirals voted for all of us to go home. Even your king has issued you orders to go home. We should go home. Right now!”

  “Not yet, Admiral. Have any other ships of PatRon 10 reported in?”

  “No.”

  “Then I intend to wait for them.”

  “Your orders are to return immediately!”

  “Admiral, may I remind you that I have not yet seen my orders. Will you kindly give me a chance to read them and decide for myself what they say.”

  The Greenfeld admiral slammed his fist down on his commlink, ending a flood of language very unfit for a princess’s ears.

  “Kris, Vicky is holding for you,” Nelly said.

  “Put her through, and while we’re talking, could you please find this set of orders I’m supposed to have from Grampa Ray.”

  “Yes, Kris,” Nelly said.

  “Hi, Kris. Did you have fun gallivanting around the galaxy?” Vicky asked, not even trying to sound like she meant it.

  “It wasn’t my idea of fun. Have you seen our report? I just sent your admiral a copy of it. I think copies are going to all the admirals.”

  “Haven’t seen a thing. Admiral Krätz is charging around the flag bridge like a man back from a six-month cruise who found a five-month-pregnant wife. I decided to make myself scarce and see if I could get the skinny straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  “I’d say neigh except I want my report distributed as far and wide in human space as I can get it.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “Take a look.”

  The Grand Duchess of Greenfeld read from a different screen, her face going from puzzlement to a frown. She ended in a scowl.

  “That looks bad.”

  “Huge population. Not willing to talk. Ready to kill anything in its way. Yeah, I think we need a whole new definition of bad for this.”

  “So you’re going to take this report to your king.”

  “I’m going to send a report to my king just as soon as I can order up a courier ship and transfer some of the bodies we found. I’m told I have some orders around here, but Nelly hasn’t found them yet. Once I read them, I’ll decide if I have to go running back to Wardhaven, like your admiral insists, or can wait for my squadron to re-form, then go back looking like a decent Navy formation. I hate leaving anyone behind.”

  Kris thought for a moment, “Especially now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen.”

  Nelly interrupted their girl talk.

  “Kris, I’ve got a copy of your orders.”

  “Let me look at them,” and a copy appeared on the screen under Vicky’s image.

  To: CO, PatRon 10

  From: Chairman, Joint Staff

  You will report here at your earliest convenience.

  “Well, that certainly comes from the top,” Kris said.

  “And it doesn’t leave much doubt as to what they want from you,” Vicky said.

  Kris pulled at her right ear. “I’m not so sure. If they’d wanted me to drop everything and run to Papa, or rather Greatgrandpapa, they would have addressed it to my Highnessness or my Longknifeship. Something personal. This is to the Commander, Patrol Squadron 10. That’s the Wasp, Hornet, Fearless , and Intrepid, methinks.

  “So,” Kris said, letting a big grin out to play, “I’ll wait here to get all my ducks in a row, then we’ll all go home together.”

  “On your head be it,” Vicky said. “I think this is one of those things they don’t want me to learn from you.”

  “Sister, some things we just have to learn on our own,” Kris said.

  “You want to tell my admiral, or shall I?” Vicky said.

  “I think I’ll give him some time to calm down,” Kris said. “We have to refuel the Wasp, anyway. I want my boffins to put together a set of physical remains to go with my report. I do want to get that off as soon as I can. Anything exciting while I was gone?”

  “One explosion on the Fury. Missed me by five minutes,” Vicky said, casually. “They’re still trying to decide if it was an accident or something else.”

  “What do you think?” Kris asked.

  “I think somebody doesn’t like me and really takes offense that I keep on breathing. Any chance your Chief Beni could meet with one or two of my guards? Ones I trust.”

  “Let’s arrange that today. You want to come on board for a visit? Ro
n the Iteeche is a fun guy to hang with.”

  “I just knew you’d been doing things with the Iteeche. How’s he hung?”

  “They are not hung, Vicky. Nothing. Nada in that area. Haven’t you read the autopsy reports from the war?”

  “I read them. I didn’t believe them.”

  “Sorry, girl. Believe them.”

  Vicky seemed to think the matter over for a while. “Okay, I’ll come over. Say in three hours. Have your chief standing by to talk to my bomb sniffers. I’ll have them bring all their gear. If I’m going to stay alive, I’ll need all the help I can get. Oh, and you will have your pet Iteeche out for me to see.”

  “Vicky, I keep telling you. He’s nobody’s pet.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you Longknifes,” Vicky said, and rung off.

  26

  The Fearless came in only a short time after the Wasp. She had visited nine systems. All of them were full of profound scientific data but not a scrap of life that her crew could spot. Also, as best they could tell, no life had visited the systems since the Three aliens first installed, built, or hatched the jump points into them.

  The good news was that this allowed Captain Drago to throw a Smart MetalTM yard over to the other corvette and put a spin on the two ships. By the time Vicky arrived, the Wasp had a good half gee of imitation gravity to offer people’s stomachs.

  “You’re alone,” Kris observed with a raised eyebrow, as Vicky exited the admiral’s barge. “No admiral?”

  “He’s not talking to you. I hope that doesn’t break your heart. I told him I was coming over to the Wasp. He grumbled something about ‘don’t get killed,’ and went back to whatever he was doing. I’ve noticed lately that he keeps his distance from me. You know, I don’t think he wants to be around when I get blown up.”

  “How rude of him,” Kris said. “Though I’ve also noticed that it takes a real friend to hang close with me.”

  “I like to think that my work helps in that area, Princess,” Chief Beni said.

  “No doubt,” both Kris and Vicky said in the same breath. That gave the two young women a chance to share a laugh. A Greenfeld Navy lieutenant and a Marine sergeant followed Vicky off the barge. Between them, they lugged a large footlocker. Vicky introduced them to Chief Beni.

  Before the three technical experts headed off on their own, Kris felt she should explain the rules. “The chief here will help you with your own equipment. After you get it working, he may give you suggestions on how to get the most out of it. Fine-tune it. He may also share some of the software workarounds that he’s developed. What I will not let him do is share any Wardhaven technology that you don’t have.”

  “Do you have to keep that last restriction?” Vicky asked. “We already know that mainstream Greenfeld technology has a ways to go to catch up with Wardhaven. We also know that some people back home have tech that’s just about as good as you have.”

  “In some cases better,” Kris grumbled. “I know. I’ve had to dodge it.”

  Kris worried her lip. “Vicky, my government has restrictions on tech transfer to Greenfeld.”

  “After the report you just shared with us, you think two different human families should be building walls between them?” Vicky asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Kris said. “But until your dad and my grampa agree to bury the hatchet someplace other than in each other’s skulls, I feel I have to live by those rules.”

  “Let’s hope I can live by them, too.”

  Kris sighed. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Chief, you go over the gear these folks have. Tell them what you can under the limits I’ve placed on you. Then, when you’re done, give me a call. We’ll talk then. That enough for you?” she asked Vicky.

  “It’s a start,” the young woman agreed.

  The technicians left.

  “Now we head for the Forward Lounge to meet Ron the Iteeche.”

  “I’m going to get to meet your Iteeche!”

  “I keep telling you, he’s not my Iteeche. He’s very much the Emperor’s Iteeche. Oh, and his chooser’s.”

  “Chooser?”

  “Think of your dad, only worse.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Is it getting that bad?” Kris asked.

  “It was getting pretty bad when I left. He’s really all googoo eyes over his new woman. And the baby boy. I figured things were going to get bad, even before the bombs started dogging my footsteps. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “Nelly, will you invite Ron to join us in the Forward Lounge? I’d like to introduce him to Vicky, ah, the Grand Duchess of the Greenfeld Empire, and we can talk about the report I sent him.”

  “He says he will be honored to meet with you two, and yes, he wants to talk about your report,” Nelly said, formally.

  “So I’m going to meet an Iteeche. In the flesh.”

  “And he’s got a lot of it,” Kris said.

  “Heavy?”

  “Oh no. Actually, he’s rather good-looking, I think. But there’s eight feet of him and a whole lot of elbows and knees.”

  “And you think he’s cute,” Vicky said, with a giggle. “Have you kissed him yet?”

  “Do you think a Longknife would tell a Peterwald?” Kris snapped back. “Would you believe anything I told you?”

  “No and no. So don’t tell me. I’ll have more fun making up stories.”

  Kris threw her hands up in the air.

  Ron was waiting for them outside the Forward Lounge. Kris did the introductions.

  “Ron, this is the Grand Duchess Victoria of the Greenfeld Empire. She’s the daughter of Emperor Henry I. Vicky, this is Ron, an Imperial Representative, though I don’t think he’s carrying a full portfolio this trip out. Oh, and his full name goes on for half a mile, but he’s willing to let me call him Ron. And he calls me Kris.”

  “I am happy to be on a first-name basis with Princess Kristine,” Ron said through his interpreting computer.

  Vicky did a lovely curtsy, and said, “I’m honored to meet you. Call me Vicky, please.”

  Ron offered each of the women an elbow, and they entered the lounge.

  Vicky giggled. “I’ve never had a guy with so many elbows. This is neat.”

  “I didn’t know that you humans had empires,” Ron said, quickly switching his four eyes from Kris to Vicky. “The last time I was in human space, there was no mention of such things except in the history books.”

  “It was kind of my dad’s idea,” Vicky said. “When Kris’s great-grampa got officially recognized as a constitutional monarch, Dad decided to go him one up. Be a full power emperor. The old geezers in our families have had this thing for years. Kris and I are hoping to skip that foolishness in our generation. Who knows, maybe we will.”

  “It would be nice,” Kris said.

  Ron mulled that over for a moment. “I remember an article in one of the news magazines about how Kris saved your father. The reporter thought that was a very strange thing to do, considering all the stories about Peterwald’s attempting to have Kris killed.”

  “None of those stories were ever proven,” Kris pointed out.

  “There must have been something behind all of them. What is your saying? Where there is smoke, there must be fire.”

  “All that didn’t matter. At the time of the attempt on her dad’s life, it seemed like a good idea that those trying to kill him not succeed.”

  “Fortunately for my dad, Kris was there. So, what brings you here? I saw the video of your meeting with King Raymond. Was that all true? Are you losing ships?”

  Ron glanced down at Kris, and the color of his residual gill slits did not show happy. “I thought that meeting was private. Not to be recorded. The way your king ushered everyone out of the room. I heard him say there should be no recordings. I testified so to my Emperor. Did you make my word false, Kris Longknife?”

  “It wasn’t me,” Kris said. With Nelly laughing in the back of her skull, she went on. “I mean,
my king did order that no recordings be made. And you yourself saw how the room emptied out. It turned out that our chief spy didn’t follow my grampa’s orders very well. He made copies of his recording and sent it around to I don’t know how many governments. The fleet you see around us is the result of that leak.”

  Ron halted beside an empty table in the front of the lounge. Two of the bar folks brought one of the things he could sit on, and they settled down before Ron went on.

  “You humans are very strange. Your chooser could not or would not order a scout force out, even though he is king. Yet his subordinate violates his orders and because of that, a search fleet goes out. Very strange behavior.”

  “You’ve got to give Kris credit for the scout fleet,” Vicky said. “The battleships showed up to go where she went. If Kris hadn’t insisted her next mission was to do some snooping around the far end of the galaxy, I don’t think anything would have happened. Really, Kris, do you?”

  Kris shrugged. “I made up my mind that I was going out here once we cured the pirate problem out beyond the rim of your empire, Vicky. All the rest just kind of followed after me like a speckled giraffe on wheels that I had when I was a little kid.”

  “Though it took a lot more pull,” Vicky said, grinning.

  “I didn’t pull anything. I went. They followed. Kind of like you Ron. I didn’t do anything to have you here, but here you are.”

  “I think my chooser and the Emperor did not want me at the court. No one wanted to talk to me, but the drift of the current was clear. People were talking about me a lot.”

  “Boy, we girls can really relate to that,” Vicky said, with just the hint of a giggle.

  “So, can we talk about what you found?” Ron asked.

  Kris nodded. “I don’t have a lot to add to it. What’s in my report is pretty grim. What I wrote was just an effort to document what I saw on the ground.”

  “Will I be allowed to take some of the bodies back to the Empire?” Ron asked.

  “I’ll let you take a complete set of bodies from the ship that attacked us,” Kris said. “If you want, you can have a complete exoskeleton from the murdered planet.”