“Admiral, I believe that the 18-inch lasers on your battleships now have triple the range of the guns we used back then. So you don’t have to get real close to the jump point to clobber anything coming out of it. Your battle squadron is also not tied up to a space station pier just now, but . . .” Kris said, and waited for a light to dawn.
The admiral said several phrases in a language Kris didn’t understand.
YOU WANT ME TO TRANSLATE, KRIS?
NO, NELLY. I SUSPECT I HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA WHAT HE’S SAYING.
The admiral fell quiet, fixing Kris with a scowl. “ And I imagine that you want me to take my battle squadron over to that jump point and take station to engage anything that exits it.”
“It strikes me as a brilliant use of your invention.”
“I would rather evacuate this system.”
“I am not ready to leave.”
“Young woman, you have no respect for rank, or your elders.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir, but I must represent the interests of the United Society as it is given me to see them. I have a ship not yet in from what is turning out to be a very hostile neighborhood of the galaxy. You are free to leave, sir. However, if you choose to stay, may I suggest that you take your four battleships over to where you may apply your 18-inch lasers to anything that exits Jump Point Delta.”
“That will take me farther away from the exit jump, Longknife.”
“For God’s sakes, Georg,” Admiral Channing snapped. “If you don’t want to do what needs doing, Kōta and I will take our ships over there. Though, Lord knows, you’ve got the biggest guns in the fleet.”
“I go. I go. Captain, send to BatRon 12, to keep the little Longknife girl happy, we will set up a prepared defense thirty thousand kilometers from Jump Point Dora. There. Are you happy?”
“Thank you very much,” Kris said, taking care to keep her tone as sincere as the law allowed.
Kris leaned back in her seat and thought seriously about ordering a drink. Clearly, it had been one of those days. She sighed and fought down the temptation, consoling herself with the thought that it couldn’t get any worse than this.
“Ah, Kris.”
“Yes, Nelly.”
“The Intrepid just jumped in system. He says you really want to hear what he has to say.
Kris groaned, and just managed to avoid giving voice to something that would not have been very princesslike.
“Put him on. Admirals, you might want to hear this.”
28
“We found a new alien civilization,” the skipper of the Intrepid announced, breathless with joy. “I think we were there when they sent up their very first artificial satellite. I mean, there was nothing up in orbit, then there was this little thing going beep, beep, beep.”
“Did you get any pictures of these aliens?” Kris asked.
“Yes. They had radio and TV. Primitive sets. We had no trouble translating the pictures, but we have no idea what they were saying. Well, some. What passed for news had a lot on it about the satellite launch. At least, we think it did.”
“Please pass your data capture to the Wasp,” Kris said, keeping her voice even, but she sounded tired even to herself.
The captain seemed startled to have his news taken in with no more excitement than they were giving it. “Is something wrong?”
“The Hornet found what we think is a bug-eyed monster’s mother ship. It’s huge, and they look to be totally nasty.”
“Oh. Well, this was a voyage of discovery. Looks like we made quite a few good ones.”
“Excuse me, Captain,” Nelly put in. “Did you follow the course laid in by the boffins for your round-trip?”
“Yep. No surprises there. Five out, then four back. The bird people, that’s what we’re calling them. Their TV had an advertisement that seemed aimed at keeping eggs at just the right temperature for a perfect hatching, or that’s what it looked like. Anyway, the bird people were on the third system out from here. They sure looked like the nicest people you could ask to meet.”
“Third system out,” Kris said. She’d heard that number before.
“Kris, we have a problem,” Nelly said softly.
On-screen, Admirals Kōta and Channing turned back from whatever they’d been doing to give the screen their full attention. A Greenfeld commander who had stayed attentive to the screen took a while to get Admiral Krätz’s attention. He was none too happy to be disturbed.
“What now, Longknife?” he demanded.
“Nelly, please explain yourself,” Kris said.
A new window opened on the screen. It showed a huge swath of the Milky Way, five thousand by five thousand light-years square. Each of the four search sweeps showed as a long white loop. The Wasp had taken the rightmost sweep and showed the murdered planet as a flashing yellow datum. The Fearless had taken the left sweep and had nothing exciting to show for the trip.
The Hornet and Intrepid had the inside sectors. As luck would have it, they’d both started on the outside legs, farthest from each other. As they returned back, they swung inward.
Three jumps out, the Hornet’s hot datum showed a flashing red. A short distance from it, in galactic terms, the Intrepid’s datum showed a flashing green.
Nelly zoomed in on the two flashing star systems. Three short jumps connected them.
“I think we have a problem,” Kris said.
29
There are moments in your life when you know, even as you live and breathe them, that you will never be the same again. Kris had survived several such moments.
She knew about moments in the lives of her family members when they must have known that the future of their planet would never be the same. Grampa Al’s decision to abandon politics after Eddy died was one of them. Father’s decision to throw his hat in the ring for Prime Minister was another, despite Grampa Al’s rage against it.
Kris had listened to their furious argument from her hiding place on the stairs. She’d seen these things done, if somewhat messily.
Kris had read of moments in Great-grampa Ray’s and Trouble’s lives when they must have known that the future of the entire human race would never be the same, depending on what they decided next.
As a teenager, Kris had dreamed of living just such a moment.
As a young woman, Kris was starting to get an idea of just how foolish her younger self had been.
A tiny voice inside Kris was laughing hysterically. You got what you wished for, kid. God help you!
It was at moments like this that Kris wished she’d been raised to believe in the power of prayer.
Kris shook off the musings that must have tied up a whole five seconds. On the screens, admirals were still giving the star map a puzzled look, so she must not have taken too much time.
“Nelly, do I have this right? The assumed hostile and the assumed friendly aliens are only three slow, easy jumps away from each other.”
“Yes, Kris. And the jump Commander Taussig reports seeing the hostile alien headed for at half a gee acceleration is the one that will take them to within two jumps of the other civilization’s system. They appear to be headed straight for the star system of the bird people.”
“Oh sweet Jesus,” someone said.
So this was it. The moment Kris had been born for. This was the decision for which history would either praise or pillory her.
“Nelly, get me the skipper of the Vulcan.”
“Online, Commodore.”
“Vulcan, how soon can you begin rigging the corvettes of PatRon 10 with the neutron torpedoes?”
“We are ready now, ma’am. We have finished the prework. Give us twelve hours alongside the ships, and we’ll be ready to load the torpedoes. Say no more than twenty-four from your word to start to them being armed and ready.”
Admiral Krätz might not have figured out the meaning of the star-map display, but he knew what Kris was talking about. “Longknife, you aren’t seriously thinking about taking on that hug
e alien mother ship,” he bellowed.
“Admiral Krätz, I was not thinking about taking on the mother ship. I was looking at my options. Now that I find I have options, yes, I am now thinking about what three chunks of neutron stars might do to that ship.”
“It would be a hell of a fight,” Phil Taussig said, a feral grin on his face.
“You can’t do that,” the Greenfeld admiral sputtered. “Not even a Longknife can declare war on an alien race all by herself. No. You can’t do it. I won’t let you do it. And don’t you go telling me that you’re not in my chain of command.”
He pointed a finger right at the camera so close that it looked wider than the rest of his body. “You have your orders. Go home. All your ships are here. You must go home.”
He paused, took in a deep breath, and finished. “If you do not follow your orders, so help me God, I will declare you rogue. A pirate to your own allegiance. I, and I would hope all of my associates, would be duty-bound to shoot you down like the dog you are.”
The pause after that grew quite pregnant. Pregnant enough to spawn an elephant. Kris let it grow for quite a while before she took a sledgehammer to it.
“Thank you, Admiral, for letting us know so clearly your opinion on this matter. As you suspect, I am coming to the conclusion that I must disagree with you.”
“Captain, power up the main battery,” the Greenfeld admiral ordered.
“Georg,” Admiral Channing of the Helvitican Confederacy interjected, “don’t you think we ought to give Her Highness a chance to explain herself?”
“No!” the Greenfeld officer snapped. “Once she starts talking, she’ll run you around in circles until you don’t know what you’re doing, and before you know it, you’ll be following her. She’s one of those damn Longknifes.”
“But I’m just a little one, remember,” Kris said, holding up two fingers just a centimeter apart. Not too long ago, that had been Admiral Krätz’s opinion of her.
He did not see the humor.
“Commander, this is Chief Beni. The Greenfeld battleships are powering up their lasers.”
“Thank you, Chief. I thought you were helping Vicky’s people.”
“I am, ma’am, but there’s no way I can be in a system with powering-up 18-inch lasers and not notice it. I’d have to be dead, dumb, and blind.”
“Thank you, Chief. Nelly, send to all PatRon 10. Do not power up lasers. Take no hostile actions. I see no reason why we can’t talk this thing through.”
“Admiral,” Vicky said at Kris’s elbow, “just a reminder. I’m on the Wasp. Please don’t shoot at me.”
“Get the hell off that ship.”
“Ah, Admiral,” Vicky said, “weren’t we talking about the chance that hostile ships might come charging into this system at any time. Do you really want me in a launch when they do?”
“You are learning too damn much from that Longknife pain in the neck.”
“Can we all please slow down and take a deep breath,” Admiral Kōta said. “I think we are faced with an important matter, and I, for one, would like to think it through very carefully.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Admiral Channing said. “I’d really prefer that none of us went off half-cocked. In either direction, Commander Longknife, Admiral Krätz.”
“I warn you, if you let her talk, she’ll have you all wrapped around her little finger before you know it,” Krätz grumbled.
“Gosh,” Vicky said coyly, “and I thought I was the one that usually had a couple of guys wrapped around my little finger.”
“Down, girl,” Kris said. “Can we take a look at our options without anyone getting killed?” she asked everyone on-screen.
“I think it’s pretty clear,” Krätz snapped. “We can go home, or we can follow this little hellion and attack the bug-eyed monsters, starting a war between humanity and God only knows what.”
“Georg, I have a fairly good idea of what that is,” Admiral Kōta said. “From the looks of it, the monster is headed for a budding civilization. If we do nothing, they will strip the planet of everything needed to support life. I, for one, do not like the idea of standing idly by while that happens. I put on this uniform to stop such atrocities, not watch them happen.”
“But what will be the price for humanity?” Admiral Channing asked.
“They came for them, and it was not my problem,” Kris quoted. “And when they came for me, there was no one else left to stand with me.”
“So you want to shoot first,” Krätz snapped.
“I’m not sure I’ll have a chance to shoot second,” Kris said. “But hold it, hold it. I don’t want to go off hunting until I have some idea of who it is I’m hunting.”
“What?” “Huh,” and “I thought you’d made up your mind already,” came in answer to that.
“Folks, all I did was see if I had some weapons that might be able to make a dent in something the size of what Phil reported. By the way, Vulcan, lie alongside the corvettes and begin installation. Your twenty-four hours started five minutes ago.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“There you go,” Krätz snapped.
“Admiral, please don’t shoot up the Vulcan. Let’s look at what we’re facing. A ship attacked the Wasp with no defiances given, no warning at all. I don’t take that for a declaration of war, but it does tell me that there is stuff out here that shoots first and doesn’t care about asking questions later.”
“Yes,” Admiral Kōta said.
“Secondly, we found a planet stripped. Its civilized species wiped out. We found the remains of a few of the people we think did it. The connection to the ship that shot at us is tenuous, but it is there.”
“I can follow you,” said Admiral Channing.
“The Hornet came back with a report of one huge ship. We have audio and video from that ship that we have not yet been able to decode. I’d really like to see who or what is on that ship before I make any decision about what we do here.”
“I agree with you on that,” Admiral Kōta said. “I would prefer not to start shooting only to find out that, say, the planet we’re worried about has an unstable star and the ship approaching it is on a rescue mission.”
“I’m glad someone is thinking about that,” Krätz grumbled.
“Nelly, would you please get me Professor mFumbo,” Kris said.
“Kris, he says he’s busy. Go away.”
That brought a chuckle from the admirals on-screen . . . and from Kris’s staff around her.
“Can they do that?” Vicky asked.
“They can get away with anything they can get away with. Nelly, put me through to the very busy professor.”
“You got him.”
“Professor, we need your input.”
“I’m busy,” he snapped, then seemed to reconsider the question. “What kind of input?”
“On taking all humanity to war,” Kris said.
“Oh my God, what are you talking about, woman?”
“I think you have his attention,” Vicky said.
“I think I do, too. Professor, we think the ship you got that video from is about to attack and destroy an entire civilization. We need to have a peek at what the people inside it look like. We’d love it if you could match some DNA off that video to some that we have on file, but I doubt even our boffin team can do that. In its place, I’d really need to see the video the Hornet recorded Real Soon Now. Time is of the essence.”
The professor came on-screen in a new window. “ And this may determine if we go to war with them?”
“Pretty much, Professor. I don’t mean to make you feel pressured or anything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, young woman. You’re telling me if the video take from the big ship shows people like we found on the ship that attacked us and the bodies on that murdered planet, you plan to attack them.”
“Let’s say that if there is a match, we’ll have to seriously consider what we do next.”
The professor ran a worried
hand through his hair, the first time Kris ever remembered him showing any sign of stress. “The data is in a format that we have never seen before. It doesn’t fit any logical structure. I’ve cracked coded video, but this goes far beyond a coding.”
“Could it be they don’t want strangers reading their stuff?” Kris said.
“Most definitely,” the professor said.
“Nelly, have you got any suggestions?”
“Kris, my kids and I have been doing everything we can think of to crack those videos. Nothing elegant works. Nothing brute force works. It is very frustrating for us computers to find such limits to our abilities.”
“Have you asked the chief to look at it?” Kris asked.
“No. He’s busy,” Nelly answered stiffly.
And besides, Nelly, you don’t want to get him involved, Kris added to herself.
“Nelly, interrupt the chief. Maybe he and the Greenfeld tech types might have a different twist on it.”
“Yes, ma’ am.”
Nelly didn’t sound very happy, but she obeyed. Kris glanced around her team. “So, ladies, gentlemen, and alien, until we have something from the ship to look at, I suggest we go about our business. Admiral Krätz, weren’t you about to move your squadron over to Jump Point Dora so they could shoot up any bug-eyed monster that edged its nose through the jump?”
“Yes. I guess I can move over there.”
“Kris, do you mind if I stay aboard the Wasp?” Vicky said.
“You aren’t seriously worried about being in a launch, are you?”
“No. I can hardly be, since I had my best friend, Maggie, ride the barge back over here while all this was going on. But I have this serious concern about my admiral taking a potshot at you. My being here just might make him have second thoughts before he does something you’d regret.”
“Come to think about it, I do have a spare bunk you can use.”
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