Kris Longknife's Replacement: Admiral Santiago on Alwa Station

by Mike Shepherd

  “Stop,” Sandy said, from where she rested in the muck. “Stop. Give up. Live.”

  The putative translator said something to the others. An intense argument broke out. There were snarls and growls all around, accompanied by way too much claw showing.

  There was also a clanking sound from aft, but it went ignored by the feline debating society. Sandy did now. She grabbed hold of a handle just in time.

  Suddenly, the submersible’s rear rose up. That tossed all the cats forward, landing them in a mass among and upon the two drivers. Sandy’s hand hold lasted just long enough to let the motor operator slid by her before she, too, was deposited atop the heap of muddy fur.

  The boat was pulled backwards for a moment, then rolled over several times, which only added to the noise from her feline kidnapers. Then the entire arrangement came to rest pretty much right side up.

  The top was blown open, up, and back, letting the sun in. The charges had been carefully chosen and placed. Sandy only had to work her jaw a few times to get her hearing back to normal.

  She grinned at what looked in at her, but it must have terrified her previous hostage holders. Twelve big, beautiful Marines in fully armored play clothes stood, rifles at the ready, aimed right between the eyes of those seven cowered cats.

  Penny was right beside them. She even had a blanket for her boss.

  Sandy took it, wrapped it around her middle like a sarong, and stood up. Stretching out for what seemed like forever was a small army of Marines, Sailor, and cats of many different flavors. Some of them had out guns; a few stood with handcuffs at the ready.

  Sandy scowled at that.

  “Penny, in case anyone has any doubt, these are my prisoners. Me, my, mine. No one else’s, and no sharing. Have these Marines take them in custody. No one interrogates them but me. You hear me?”

  “Perfectly, Admiral.”

  “Fine. Now, I want to get cleaned up and then I want a clean pair of blues. You get the word out to President Almar, Madame Gerrot and that entire posse of cutthroats that I intend to have a nice talk with them just as soon as I can get back up there and it will be according to my agenda. Got that.”

  “If they ask me the subject of this talk?”

  “Your boss was too mad and you didn’t ask,” Sandy snarled, carefully stepping out of the feeble attempt at escape transportation. Two Marines stepped forward to give her a hand.

  Once again on firm ground, she turned back to the cats that now were her captives. “Penny, have Mimzy say this for me. You are now my prisoners. I am going to have you separated because I want to hear each of your own tales. No one will harm you, not a cat. Not one of these heavily armed humans. You are mine, body and soul. I will have answers.”

  Sandy eyed the cowed captives for a moment longer, then turned to make her way toward a waiting ride. She didn’t intend to study the faces of the waiting cats, but she couldn’t miss the way the eyes of the police and other cats were just as downcast as her prisoners.

  Yep, there’s something rotten here. Before I let these cats out of their gravity well, I sure as hell better know what it is.

  Chapter 21

  Sandy got her shower first, with Penny serving as lifeguard. Three very intense Marines hardly left her sight, one looking in, her gun roving over anything that so much as moved. The other two looked out, covering not only the door but every square inch of wall.

  Not surprising, the shower was located off the restroom of recent sour memory.

  The only person to risk the ire of Sandy’s guards as she soaped up and rinsed was a doc who insisted on taking her vitals and checking out the blackening bruise on her face and neck.

  “That’s gonna hurt before morning. You want a bit of something for the pain?” he said as he concluded his once over.

  “Not if it will impair my judgment,” Sandy snapped.

  He produced two standard pain pills. “If you need more later, you know where I live.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  Fresh blues made Sandy feel like a new woman. She started issuing orders.

  “Drago, I want fast lift from here back to where I was this morning. Bruce, I want an armored escort, suitable for rapid travel through city streets and intimidating as all get out.”

  “They’re already down here. I’ll just have to clean the mud off of two.”

  As it turned out, it was these big heavily-armored tracks that the cats’ escape submersible had run into. The monsters weren’t amphibious, but they could wade in quite a ways and had done that, both fore and aft of the cats’ quiet escape pod.

  Sandy got a good look at them as she exited the launch command center. She also spotted the big-wheeled swamp buggy with a fifty ton crane that the cat engineers had had on hand to lift the fish up and out of the bayou.

  “Remind me to thank the cats that helped you.”

  “I got Krysta, the senior engineer right here, Admiral.”

  Sandy was presented with a cat in tall and muddy boots. Her sleek black coat was speckled with mud and streaked with muddy water, but she was grinning from ear to ear.

  Sandy held out her hand, and got a paw in return.

  “Thank you for all the work you did to put an end to that noise,” Sandy said.

  Around them, cats were snapping pictures and even a Marine was recording the scene. No doubt, posterity would long remember this day. More likely, some grandkids would be mighty bored with the repeated telling.

  “I was only too happy to be called upon and able to handle this bump in the road of our relations,” the engineer Krysta answered. “We are not all like them, tails between our legs, afraid of our shadows, ma’am. We really aren’t.”

  Sandy nodded at that, but said nothing.

  One of the armored Marine fighting vehicles rumbled up and General Bruce stepped out. “We’re ready for you now, Admiral.”

  “I have miles to go before I sleep,” Sandy told the cat engineer, and likely the whole globe. “I hope your moon probe is successful,” she added, reminding everyone that she’d really been here to witness a rocket launch.

  Enough said, she boarded her ride and it rumbled off toward the airfield.

  I have miles to go before I sleep and a lot of ass to chew before I get to the bottom of this box of cats.

  Chapter 22

  Eight longboats launched out in rapid succession from the deserted airstrip near the rocket command center. Each was loaded with one armored infantry vehicle, four of the fast, light transports, and half a platoon of Marines. Sandy rode in the fifth one, Penny at her elbow and seven cowered cats, clapped in borrowed hand cuffs, were a bit further aft under heavy Marine guard.

  The suborbital ride was brief, and the noise level was not conducive to an interrogation. Sandy let her questions circle slowly in the back of her mind. It wasn’t just these seven she needed answers from. She also needed to get the nine big honchos talking.

  Really talking.

  Who, exactly were these cats and what was stroking their fur the wrong way?

  During the shower Penny had shared with Sandy the curse on the goddess that had supported her kidnapers in pulling off what was damn near a miracle. Not just a miracle that they’d succeeded, but that they’d all lived through it.

  Sandy knew how close a thing it was. She’d been dragged through that tunnel, smelled the raw earth and oozing mud. She was not surprised that the tunnel had collapsed behind her. She was more surprised that it hadn’t collapsed on top of her and the cat pulling her along.

  Someone had coordinated matters closely with the locals. This time Sandy’s longboats were vectored into the main airport. All traffic was being held on the ground or circling well away from them as they came in fast and braked to a halt before taxiing to a side hanger reserved for the local military.

  Sandy assigned her prisoners in pairs to the gun trucks, but held the one that had answered her question and the white male for her own armored transport. The two of them huddled in the front of the rig, j
ust behind the seats of the driver and two gunners. Eight Marines joined Sandy and Penny in the crew seats.

  No sooner had the longboats come to a stop than the back ramp was down and the vehicles rolled out. The armored infantry fighting vehicles quickly formed into a line with sixteen of the gun trucks running before them, the other half following.

  A number of local police cars and motorcycle cops led the way. They set a brisk pace that the track-laying armored monsters had no trouble maintaining. Sandy saw from the front viewports that they traveled a wide expressway devoid of traffic.

  No one was taking any risks with her safety this time.

  “They’ve got choppers overhead,” Penny reported. “They’ve also have aircraft orbiting above them.”

  “Let’s hope they stay on our side,” Sandy said, darkly.

  “They better hope that they do,” the gunner next to Sandy said, grinning up through his sights of his highly-elevated machine cannon. “I’m locked and loaded on the nearest one, Admiral.”

  Sandy wondered how many of her young gunners had their guns aimed with just such intent. She did notice that the Marine did not have his finger on the trigger, but rested it on the trigger guard.

  No doubt if he hadn’t, Gunny in the back would have called his error to his attention immediately. There was intent, but there was also trained professionalism.

  Thank God for the Joes, Sandy prayed fervently.

  They turned off the expressway and sped through streets that were blocked off, with cars piling up behind police at every intersection. As they rolled into the plaza with the offices of the Associated Peoples rising above, General Bruce issued orders. Gun trucks and armored rigs circled the building, their weapons aimed out or high. Only the track with Sandy entered the basement parking area with the four rigs that held her prisoners.

  They screeched to a halt near a bank of six elevators. Unarmed police held the doors open, then stood silently as Sandy, Penny and her Marines streamed past them with prisoners being walked quickly among them. Elevators full, the police entered and used keys to see that the ride rose quickly to the penthouse level.

  “I’m sorry, Admiral, that we don’t have one of the two cats we picked up last time. I think they’d be really helpful about now.”

  “Why don’t we?”

  “Both were sent to Wardhaven to see the King.”

  “I hope King Ray finds them helpful. Don’t worry, Sandy, we’ll muddle through on our own.”

  Sandy waited after the elevator came to a stop. Gunny exited with four troopers. They swept the room, no doubt helped by technical specialists from the other elevators. Finally, Gunny waved Sandy forward.

  Grand Admiral Maria Santiago of the Royal United Society Navy marched with intent for the small copse of trees that hid the table from view. The sound of gently falling water from the small glens around her did not calm her nerves.

  I damn near drowned in mud and water today.

  Before she reached her goal, the elevators were back. This time they disgorged only Marine dismounts. Most were riflemen who set about patrolling the area. Several were from a heavy weapons company. They scattered to set up light anti-aircraft lasers.

  Sandy swept through the fake forest to find the nine movers and shakers of this world seated again at the heavy wooden table. They’d left the head of it empty.

  Sandy headed there. She shoved the chair aside; she had no intention of sitting. Maybe she was madder than she thought: the chair tumbled over.

  Sandy leaned on the table. “Why was I just kidnaped?”

  Around the nine cats at the table, Marines filtered until twenty of them stood, rifles at port arms. Seven of them had a muddy and chastened cat handcuffed to them as well.

  “Maybe you should ask the ones who took you?” Madame Gerrot said, nodding toward the prisoners.

  “We humans have a saying. ‘Where there is smoke, there is fire.’ You and I both know that you threw a very tight security bubble over me. One that failed. Still, you protected me as tightly as you ever did one of your royalty. I want to know why. What were you expecting and from whom?”

  Sandy’s words were harsh and bitten off hard. They barked from Mimzy just as sharp.

  I got to get me one of those computers.

  The cats looked at each other, keeping their eyes low. None met Sandy’s glare.

  Finally, the one in the golden cape said, “It’s them, the ones from the place where your Kris Longknife flattened the mountain and killed their beloved leader. These traitors are their running dogs.”

  If possible, the heads of the seven subjects of this derision sank down lower.

  “I doubt that,” Sandy said. “Your own media reports that those behind that iron wall have lost themselves in their own bloody problems. You have embargoed them and closed off all travel. Beyond that, I have the testimony of my own intelligence teams. Sorry, try again.”

  “It was an inside job,” Penny added. “We are talking to two people at the launch site. They gave themselves up when everything went to hell. They are your own people.”

  Golden cape hunched over at Penny’s answer, her eyes fixed on the table.

  That was the way it stayed for a long time. Finally, Madame Gerrot coughed softly.

  “You ask who might have done this. I think you should ask yourself who wouldn’t.”

  Sandy allowed the woman a questioning glance.

  “Those who are high up fear they will be brought low. Those who are low fear that change will steal away even what little they now hold. There are those who say their goddess is with you and that their goddess saved Kris Longknife from her attacker last visit. There are others who say their goddesses have declare you abominations that must be driven from the pride lands. Driven out or killed if you will not flee.”

  The old cat sighed. “Yes, there are many among us that are as hopeful for this meeting between two distant peoples as the eager young cubs that Kris first talked to. While Priff here,” she nodded at the golden caped one, “fears that you will demand slave levies from us, some of our countries have asked for volunteers to work with you star people. Some of us guessed that you might need our labor to crew the ships that you might assign to protect the pride lands so we asked for volunteers.”

  Madame Gerrot turned to sweep the table with a quick glance. “My government, President Almar’s administration, and that of five more were inundated with those willing to go to the stars with you.”

  Sandy used the prime minister’s pause for breath to interject her own take on that.

  “And how many of them would pack an atomic bomb in their luggage to blow up one of my battlecruisers?”

  President Almar snorted. “Despite what the media say, no atomic bomb is small enough to fit in anyone’s luggage, not unless you’re letting them bring big crates aboard that weigh half a ton.”

  “If you truly become our allies, in name and fact,” Sandy pointed out, “you may be shipping material that weight tons. Besides, a shipment of meat to feed my crew might well be the size you mentioned.”

  “Don’t we know the problem,” Madame Garret said, taking back the conversation. “We have lived for the last fifty years with the fear of some rogue mailing in a bomb under the heading of ‘agricultural equipment.’ We have ways to assure that such a thing does not happen.”

  Sandy considered that.

  “In humanity’s long ago days,” Mimzy put in, “before we outlawed the construction, possession or use of atomics, there were entire security systems set up to prevent just what the Sasquans mentioned.”

  “Thank you, Mimzy” Sandy said. The computer’s unrequested input had produced shock from all those around the table.

  Penny, I got to have one of those.

  Sandy paused for only a moment before returning to the matter at hand. “Back to the volunteers you spoke of. Assuming they don’t bring an atomic bomb with them, or even a satchel of explosives, which, I might point out, would not get past our inspection, there i
s still the problem of intent. Madame Gerrot, you rattled off several factions among you that either fear or possibly even hate our very existence. How will you avoid them getting aboard my ships? These ships are complex machines. A spanner in the machinery might not kill us, but it would certainly inconvenience us. What if this sabotage occurs while we are fighting for our life against the murderous aliens . . .?” Sandy left the thought hanging.

  “We have thoroughly investigated their backgrounds,” President Almar quickly put in.

  “Just like you thoroughly investigated the backgrounds of all those working on your space program?” Sandy shot right back.

  President Almar and Madame Gerrot eyed each other for a long minute.

  “Who keeps watch over the watchman?” the prime minister finally said. “You have clawed powerfully, opened our vulnerable belly skin. Let me offer a thought for all of us to consider. We could establish two, maybe three associations to check the background of each candidate. My government has three parties, and anytime we agree on anything, I am amazed. However, if the three parties were to organize separate administrations and review each candidate separately, we might indeed have at least one that uncovers an impropriety in an applicant’s background.”

  The prime minister paused to let that thought sink in. Then she went on. “There is also the matter of us being flooded by volunteers. No doubt, even after we eliminate any that have the slightest question in their background, there will still be many competing for the few slots in your work draft. Might a lottery be used to pick the finalists at random? Lady Luck can dance a fine jig on the best laid plans of prey and cat alike.”

  Sandy found she liked the way this cat was thinking.

  “How many of you already have voluntary programs?”

  Seven hands went up, included Priff of the golden cape.

  “Begin a triple check, using any source you think is reliable,” Sandy ordered. “I think we will also be using your lottery idea for the final selections.”