Kris Longknife's Replacement: Admiral Santiago on Alwa Station

by Mike Shepherd

  Sandy would also see that work teams were made up of cats from different nations. The more she scrambled the volunteers, the less likely she was to have bad ones in close proximity. Of course, there was always the chance of hires going sour once they were on the job.

  We’ll need to have regular transit between Alwa and Susquan to swap ships and people.

  It had been a long day. Not at all the day Sandy had expected when she showered this morning. Her work done here, she, her Marines and her prisoners were once again whisked to the airport and given the first slots on the runway. The climb to orbit was smooth and Sandy found herself back on the Relentless, sleeping in her own bed that night.

  Seven cats, however, were quartered in the brig. Sandy might not spend her time finding out all they had to say, but she’d wait, with baited breath, for the report from those who did.

  Chapter 23

  “Penny,” Sandy said as she attacked her breakfast in the wardroom next morning, “I am in need of a new commlink.”

  “We found your old one. It’s still working, ma’am. Didn’t anyone give it back to you?”

  Sandy pulled the old commlink from the breast pocket of her blues.

  “Oh,” Penny said. “I take it that getting the old one back isn’t the topic of conversation.”

  “Nope.”

  “I think she wants one of us,” Mimzy said at Penny’s collarbone.

  “Something like that,” Sandy agreed.

  “We can not be swapped among humans,” Mimzy said on her own. “Mother is very definite about that. It has something to do with us imprinting on our human, or maybe it’s the other way around. Anyway, I don’t think we would work well with anyone but the human we came awake with.”

  “I wasn’t going to try pulling rank on Penny and demanding she hand you over, Mimzy,” Sandy said, feeling a bit strange talking to a computer like she was a person. Sandy knew people who talked to their computers. They were usually a bit strange in the head. Helpful for what they did, but not someone you wanted get too close to.

  “I don’t know that we’ve got any self-organizing matrix out here on Alwa Station,” Penny said slowly. “I can get you the top of the line unit that we do have out here, kind of like Granny Rita’s got. Likely, we’ve got better than that now. We can also get you a skull net so you can talk directly on Nelly Net through your own computer. I’d likely add you to Mimzy’s immediate access list so we could timeshare. I rarely task Mimzy at anything close to her full capacity.”

  “I have my own special projects. We all do,” Mimzy said. “Sometimes I work with my brothers and sisters on one project. Sometimes on my own.”

  “Well, Penny, yesterday made me a true believer. Get me the best that you can for now and get a signal off to Kris Longknife and Nelly, asking them if they’d mind shipping a kid here that me and Mimzy could wake up and I could work with.”

  “I’ll have a call out on the next ship,” Penny said, then paused. “Ah, when is the next ship, ma’am?’

  Sandy winced. “I’d planned to send the King a report every six months or so, which means we’re five months away from a mail ship.” Sandy worried her lower lip as she mulled her problem. The less traffic back to human space, the less likely the aliens were to take notice that there were hundreds, if not thousands of worlds out in that distant corner of the galaxy just waiting to be plundered and murdered. For now, humanity very much wanted them all focused on this abscess of stubborn and victorious life at this end of the galaxy.

  With a deep sigh, Sandy made her call. “Get me what you can and hook me into the net. For now, we hold the request for something better for the regularly scheduled Royal Mail.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am. I’ll get you the best we have on board now, then get you a better one once we get back to Canopus Station. As for the skull net, that will take about an hour in sickbay, looking at how your brain works. Bruce, Jacque, and I will likely all be needed to see that what we spin together out of Smart Metal is just right.”

  “Tell me when you want me. I’m not expecting anything to either set my hair on fire today, or haul me off to some muddy corner of that world below us. No. Today better be nice, quiet and boring.”

  “Good idea, that” Said Jacques, as he and Amanda joined Sandy’s table.

  “Anything happening down there?” Sandy asked nodding her chin downward at the planet of puzzling felines.

  “It’s really too early to tell,” Amanda said, then glanced at her husband and got the giggles. He broke into a huge smile, part loving husband, but another part that puzzled Sandy.

  “Okay, is there something you want to let me in on?”

  Amanda got control of herself. “This is still preliminary,” she said, then lost it again. “You tell her,” she finally got out around rather adorable tittering.

  “The cats are having problems about yesterday. Some of them.”

  Sandy sipped her coffee. “I should hope so. It can’t be every day that someone runs off with the commander of the aliens orbiting in your sky.”

  “Actually, there is pretty much uniform agreement that that should never have happened. There’s a move to impeach President Almar for her handling of that situation. No, the problem is the secret recruitment effort to get people to work with us.”

  “A problem?” Sandy echoed.

  “Yes,” Amanda answered, now in control of herself. “The media and opposition are up in arms. Those that don’t have a recruitment drive want to know why their country doesn’t. Those that have one are being condemned for having it, or, in two cases, being condemned by one party for having one and another group for having it so secret that none of their cats got to apply.”

  Sandy quickly swallowed her coffee before she snorted it out her nose. She finally risked, “Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, and damned if you do and don’t. Are you sure those critters down there aren’t house cats?”

  “I don’t know,” Penny said. “They sound pretty much like every politician I’ve ever heard of.”

  Sandy nodded. “Makes me glad I’m Navy. Okay, do any of you three see any reason why we can’t just sit here quietly in orbit and let those cats do their feline thing?”

  “No.” “Nope.” and “Great by me.” were her answers.

  “Fine. I’m sure I’ve got some boring reports to keep me occupied today. Brief me at supper tonight on developments.”

  Chapter 24

  Sandy had a very quiet day, thank you very much. She got caught up on her reading or at least put a dent in the reports everyone assured her she “really needed to read.” She got through maybe a quarter of them.

  Quite strangely, as it would seem, they pretty much agree on most points. Kris Longknife had been handed three very tough jobs, and juggling them all very well.

  Sandy had already gotten a good look at the fleet Kris had commanded. It was ship shape and in fighting fiddle. It was also a bit strange. When Sandy ordered up a sandwich to eat at her desk, the steward’s mate striker who brought it was a Rooster. When she took a break for a walk around the ship, she passed Sailors with accents from Wardhaven and Alwa as well as Roosters and Ostriches. Kris Longknife had taken what was at hand and used it to crew a fleet any way she could.

  She’d also built that fleet. Admiral Drago’s Relentless was Alwa built, but Sandy couldn’t tell it from looking at her. Like any of the Smart MetalTM ships, there was a tendency at any time of the day or night for a bulkhead here or there to go missing or be added. Still, the general layout of this battlecruiser was the same as the Victory that had brought Sandy out. Its fighting gear appeared to be in proper shape and its crew, despite their different number of fingers, quite ready to fight all comers.

  Even more impressive, while building her fleet, Kris Longknife had also built an economy. The same lunar fabrication plants that provided the goods and gear to build ships also saw to it that the Colonials got the power plants, planetary ships and aircraft, construction and farming equipment that th
ey needed to expand their standard of living from just making it to making it very well, thank you.

  And then there were the birds. A quick call to Amanda brought a short lecture on just how much the Alwans were opposed to anything resembling an economy.

  “Those that come to work for us don’t even like to get paid. Most of them can’t grasp the very concept that money, be it cash, credit or pretty shells, has any value. We even tried minting coins to see if something they could bite and made nice noises when they dropped it might help them get the concept, but it was a bust.”

  “Then how do you pay them?”

  “We print a catalogue of all the goodies that they like. They pick and chose what they want, and we tell them how many hours they have to work at this or that job to get that as a ‘gift’ from us. Gift!”

  “It must drive a doctorate in economics crazy,” Sandy said.

  “Way around the bend crazy,” Amanda agreed.

  Sandy frowned, then flipped to a report she’d found, but didn’t quite understand. “This Land Use Report. My fleet is homesteading the land down on Alwa?”

  “Yes, that idea really took off. We’re stuck way out here on the other side of the galaxy, staring at the same bulkhead day after day, waiting for some alien to come along and either kill us or get killed by us. It’s enough to send anyone to the loony bin. Since we don’t have all that many loony bin available out here, the entire fleet was in danger of becoming one crazy place. I don’t know who came up with the idea of working one week on and one week off, with the week off being dirtside at your very own farm, ranch or whatever, but I think it’s kept us all from coming apart.”

  “One week on, one week off,” Sandy said. “That leaves you at half crew.”

  “Not if you invite Colonials or birds to join the crew.”

  “So that’s where you get the polyglot crews I’m seeing.”

  “Yep, they join the crew, we get some leave. It’s working out better than any of us ever thought it would.”

  “So, where does the land come from? Is there another catalogue that shows the birds what they get for this much land?” Sandy said, not liking the taste of the words coming out of her mouth.

  “You don’t know Kris Longknife very well if you think she would stand for that, do you? She’s read up on when some of her ancestors were run off their land and shoved off to ‘reservations.’ No way is she going to let that happen here. Granny Rita’s survivors got a grant to settle on some of the worse land on Alwa. They were just scratching out a living when we got here. Now, with modern equipment and practices, some viaducts to bring in more water for that land and more. We’re eating much better. It was touch and go, as the fleet started to show up. Yes, we desperately needed more ships, but whether or not we could feed the crews was an open question for the first year.”

  Amanda paused, a faraway look in her eyes. “Some of us remember eating a lot of fish and some pretty strange nuts and berries.”

  “I saw a report on our supply chain. It didn’t say anything about a potential shortage,” Sandy said, not bothering to hunt up that report.

  “Nope, it wouldn’t. We’re bringing in food from the Colonial farms at something like five times the old rate. Even the ‘gentlemen farmers’, as we call our off-duty folks, are pulling their own weight. Not only are we not going hungry but fewer and fewer Colonials are needed on the farms so some are working on the moon, others with the docks in orbit, still more here in the fleet. Oh, and a lot of the young Colonial couples are signing on to work with us dirtside to see that the fleet’s farms really are productive. A lot of people are pulling together to make all this happen.”

  “So I don’t have to worry about this Viceroy hat?”

  “Oh, I’d worry about it. Worry about it plenty.”

  Sandy gave Amanda a jaundiced eye.

  “It’s one huge, cobbled together construction with all kinds of feedback loops just waiting to throw the whole thing out of kilter and bring it all crashing down on our heads.”

  “So, it’ll be a hands-on job.”

  “As we need more land, you’ll need to negotiate with the birds. As they discover they like our stuff, you’ll need to make sure we have what they want traded for our work. And make it a fair trade, not easy when no one here really knows what anything costs. Oh God, for a market economy,” Amanda exclaimed.

  “And that’s not even talking about what my husband would gladly bend your ear for hours on end. The bird cultures are splitting at the seams. I can’t go into all the changes that have hit them since we arrived. Granny Rita and her few desperate survivors didn’t make a dent on this planet. Us. We may not be nearly as numerous as we could be, but our trading goods are making all kinds of changes. Just the rapid communications our commlinks provide is changing these birds from ‘I’ll see you this afternoon,’ to ‘I can find time for you at 3:15.’ Imagine jumping from the stone age to the 24th century in one generation.”

  “Frightening,” Sandy said.

  “A lot of the birds are really getting in with us. A lot of others are getting frightened. Yep, Kris minded the store real good.”

  “But now the store is mine to mind.”

  “Very much.”

  “Thank you.”

  Amanda left Sandy staring at the overhead.

  How is a mere mortal woman to fill the shoes of a demigod Longknife?

  Chapter 25

  For the next two days, Sandy immersed herself in the study of the many strange aspects of the new command she’d been handed. What King Raymond told her was a whale of a lot different from the reports on her desk and the conversations she had with Admiral Drago and Penny, as well as with Amanda and Jacques.

  Then the fun really started.

  She had made it a practice of eating breakfast and dinner with her team. It was good way of getting both food, information and some human contact into a day that was often scant on the last. She, Admiral Drago and her two intelligence types had taken over a small table in the wardroom, ordered their dinner and just began to enjoy it.

  The two civilians were late, something they rarely allowed to happen.

  They both arrived out of breath.

  “It’s happening?” Amanda said.

  “Then order something before you let me in on what has you so breathless,” Sandy ordered softly. They were, after all, civilians.

  A stewards’ mate, this time an Ostrich, took their orders. Even as the bird turned to fill them, Jacques started his report.

  “Governments have been facing votes of no confidence all day. Two fell, including that golden caped one you had so much trouble with, Priff.”

  “She was a pain in the butt, but I didn’t think that rated her being thrown out of a job,” Sandy said.

  “We’re not sure. Her government was running one of the secret recruiting programs. It seems their censor were doing a good job of keeping it a secret. Keeping it a secret from everyone in her country but her own party was the reason for the vote, at least, that is the announced reason. We’re not sure that’s the real reason. This is kind of like coming in for the last thirty minutes of a five hour movie. We don’t know the half of what’s making things move. Anyway, she’s out. President Almar survived a vote for impeachment by a single vote in her lower house, and they promptly passed a bill to cancel the program. However, the upper house voted and passed a bill to keep the program and make it open to all.”

  Sandy rolled her eyes at the overhead. “I am so glad I’m Navy. I’d never want to be a politician,” she prayed fervently.

  “Yes,” Amanda said with a wide, toothy grin, “oh royal Viceroy of Alwa.”

  Sandy threw the lovely woman a dirty look. Amanda let it slide off her with a lovely shrug.

  “While the politicians are chasing their tails, verbally and otherwise,” Admiral Drago said, dryly, “the fleet is getting offers to replenish our larders. We are running low on fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. A fleet must eat.”

  Sandy sighe
d. “Good point, but can we eat their food? Assuming we can, can we trust what they ship up to us not to be poisoned? Oh, and can we pay for it?”

  Drago nodded. “Madame Gerrot and President Almar threw a victory banquet in Kris’s honor after we won that battle here. We survived the chow just fine. As for paying for it, word is, several governments are willing to pick up the tab as a Thank You for saving their necks or something. If you’re willing to go along with this, I’ll have our medical teams work closely with the Supply Department to assure we get stuff we can eat and to make sure it isn’t tainted.”

  Sandy made a face at the perfectly square meatloaf and powdered mashed potatoes. “See if you can do that,” Sandy said, “I am getting tired of this. The vegetables look like they’ve been frozen since the last Ice Age.”

  “We’ll see if we can’t have steaks on the menu tomorrow,” Drago promised.

  Penny got that far away look on her face that Sandy had learned to recognize as her in an intense talk with Mimzy. Sandy had spent a long hour in sickbay and now wore a skull harness that itched maddeningly at times. The ships’ docs were pretty sure it was all in her head, but that was the point. It was her head that was itching.

  Hopefully it would go away over time.

  Whatever had Penny mentally away from the table didn’t require Nelly Net. After a few moments, she cleared her throat. “Admiral Santiago, President Almar and Prime Minister Gerrot request a meeting with you.”

  “Will it just be them?” Sandy asked.

  “There are three or four other chiefs of state who would like to be included, if you’re willing to talk to them. They are all presidents or prime ministers who survived the turmoil of the last few days.”

  Sandy thought about matters for a minute. “Where do they want to meet?”

  Penny took only a moment to answer. “Wherever you wish, Admiral.”

  Sandy grinned. “They can learn, these cats. Okay, this time they come to me. Admiral Drago, how many admirals’ barges do you have?”