Kris Longknife Audacious

by Mike Shepherd

  “Twelve, thirteen years, I think. My third wife definitely wanted me gone and she had pull with the right staff. Or was it me that wanted to be as far away from her as possible?” He looked up, those gray eyes sparkling. “I don’t remember.”

  “You do remember the difference between the skull and the pelvis bones, don’t you?” Captain DeVar asked.

  “Usually, young man, but for you I can make an exception.”

  “Doc, who really runs this embassy?” Kris shot into that round of chuckles.

  “I was wondering when you’d ask,” Doc said, eyeing DeVar.

  “It’s pretty obvious the ambassador is a figurehead,” Kris said. “So, who does the heavy lifting. Who’s reporting to Admiral Crossenshield?”

  That brought a sigh from Doc and a raised eyebrow from the Marine captain.

  “We’ve gone though nine or ten political affairs officers in the time I’ve been here, Your Highness,” Doc said slowly. “They keep being declared persona non grata for a whole raft of reasons, usually involving young women or men. More correctly, girls and boys.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Kris snapped, then thought. “All of them?”

  “Rather routinely,” Doc said with a shrug.

  “Couldn’t Eden come up with a new excuse?” Penny asked. “Isn’t it obvious when you rerun the same play year after year?”

  The only answer Doc gave was another shrug.

  “So you get to know too much about Eden and you get shipped out of here with a smear on your name,” Kris said.

  “Last one left about a month ago,” DeVar added.

  “About the time I got orders,” Kris said with a sigh that would have made any of Tommy’s Irish grandmum’s proud.

  “Okay, if I want to stay alive, I’ve got to get to the bottom of this planet. While avoiding compromising involvement with little boys and girls.”

  “Don’t bet on that being possible, Your Highness,” Doc said. “They’ve shipped our people off on some pretty flimsy excuses.”

  “But this time they’re dealing with a princess. And a Longknife. Enough said?” Kris growled.

  “That does make this round interesting,” Jack said through a painful-looking grin.

  “Captain, what do you bring to the table?” Kris asked.

  “I command the largest Embassy Marine detachment we’ve deployed. A reinforced rifle company, say a hundred and twenty-five trigger pullers. Supporting them are another fifty technical-and heavy-weapons specialists. We drill monthly on evacuating the embassy and getting the entire staff up the beanstalk for transport on the first available U.S. merchant or warship.” The captain rattled off the words of his mission and capability like he said them every night before bed. And being a Marine officer, he just might.

  “Special operations capable?” Penny asked.

  “Of course, Lieutenant. But we don’t advertise.”

  “Nelly, have you finished your analysis of the underground media? Any pattern? Any reporters better at hitting the mark?”

  “Yes Kris, but I am not finding much gold in this gravel.”

  “Good metaphor, Nelly,” Penny said. “But why no gold?”

  “Some reporters are better at getting the hot stories, but they get hired away to main media. And even the best are wrong half the time. This place is an enigma even to its residents.”

  “And the opposition party hasn’t bothered to drop by and say hi to me,” Kris said with a frown.

  “I think all the folks with the power kind of like things the way they are,” Doc said.

  “So why is someone trying to bump me off?” Kris asked.

  The room was quiet for a long time on that one. Finally Jack said the obvious. “Vicky Peterwald?”

  Kris nodded, but wasn’t about to swallow it whole. “Is this just the usual Peterwald thing? Does Eden have nothing to do with it? Come on crew. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire, and where there’s a cover-up, there’s usually something being covered? I don’t buy that it’s just me. There’s something being hidden and they’re spending a lot to hide it. And they ship off planet anyone who gets too close to it.”

  Kris eyed those around the table. She had their interest. “I want to know what it is. Now, before it kills me.”

  “The best source we have,” Abby said softly, “may well be the two kids I made friends with.”

  Kris shook her head. “I am not involving kids. They get too close to one of those damn Longknifes, they could get dead.”

  “I believe Sherlock Holmes did quite well with the Baker Street Irregulars,” Doc put in.

  “Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character,” Kris shot back. “These kids are real people and they could get real dead. No, Doc, Abby, and you, too, Jack. We do this with grown-ups. No kids. Doc, you’ve been here the longest. You know many locals?”

  “Not many. The embassy stays pretty closed in. And as you know, those that concentrate outward seem to get shipped home rather quickly.”

  Captain DeVar raised an eyebrow at Doc.

  “Okay, I do have a lady friend, but no, no way am I getting her involved with a Longknife. You hear me?”

  They listened to the silence of that for a long moment.

  Abby sat bolt upright. “Kris, I’ve got to take a call.”

  The maid listened to her earbud for a second, then tapped it. “Please repeat that?”

  Now the sound came loud and clear to the group. The voice was young and high-pitched and clearly frightened.

  “Auntie, Bronc’s vanished. A gang has kidnapped him.”

  25

  “Are you sure?” Abby asked.

  “Auntie, Bronc’s not like other men. When he says he’ll do something, he does it. He said he was going by the shop today to show off his new gear. He spent yesterday playing with it, getting it tuned in. Figuring out what it would do. He was like a baby with a new rattle, I told him. He was fun.

  “But he didn’t make it to the shop. Mick didn’t see him. And the Bones, they aren’t on the street today. At least none of the ones I spotted would talk to me. They’re avoiding me. The Bone Man has to have taken him. Abby, I don’t dare go to the Crypt to see the head Bone Man. Not by myself.”

  “No. Don’t. Can you make it to the tram station?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll meet you there as quickly as I can. It may take a bit. I need to get some things.”

  Kris could only guess what those things were. But she knew for sure what one of them was.

  A princess.

  Abby offered further hope and advice to take care before cutting the line. “You’ll excuse me, I seem to have pressing business elsewhere,” the maid said, getting up from the table.

  “I’m going with you,” Kris said.

  “Did you hear Cara? Don’t you know why her Bronc is up to his ears in trouble, Kris? He got too close to you! He doesn’t need more proof of that.”

  “No, the guys giving him grief need reminding that you don’t mess with a Longknife. Or someone close to a Longknife. I’m with you, Abby,” Kris said…and managed to stand without too much of a groan.

  “Need I remind you that you’re in no shape for a fight,” Abby snapped.

  “So I guess someone else will have to do her fighting for her,” Captain DeVar said with a hungry grin. He tapped his wrist comm. “Gunny, I want three squads, in civvies, armed for a street fight of escalating violence, ready to depart in fifteen minutes. Include general tech support and two teams of snipers.”

  An “Aye aye” answered him.

  “Your Highness, I would recommend that you not be in uniform, either. If we’re about to give a hard lesson to street punks, no need to show the flag.”

  “Can your Marines take these punks?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” Captain DeVar said with an evil chuckle. “Quite a few of my Marines started on the streets, ma’am. They know how those punks fight. And it took about fifteen minutes at boot camp for some drill instructor to knock the shiny
off them. I know what those gangers are good for. And you know what Marines can do. This will be quite a lesson. And who knows. Some of the survivors just might show up tomorrow to sign themselves in. It’s been known to happen.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Marines began deploying…according to their captain’s battle plan.

  26

  Abby hurried off the tram, trying not to look frantic as she searched the station for Cara. Behind her, she could hear the Marines moving more slowly, more carefully. She’d let them take the safe route. For Cara, Abby hurried in where any smart operator would fear to tread.

  No surprise, Cara wasn’t in the station. To hang here for too long would only invite trouble. So Abby beat feet for the street, getting way ahead of her Marine squad. She liked Sergeant Bruce and his squad of King Ray’s Misguided Children.

  He’d protect her back…if she didn’t outrun him too much.

  The captain’s orders to his troops were quite clear. “I want you all back. I don’t want to break more heads than we have to. If it’s a street fight, use brass knuckles. If it’s a knife fight, pull your automatics. If they shoot, Sergeant, go to fully automatic and snipers, take down the ones with guns. Hard. I repeat, I want all of you back for chow.”

  “Ooo-Rah” had answered that.

  The street in front of the tram station was hot, dusty…and deserted. It was the middle of the day and those that had jobs were working them. Those without work were staying in what cool they could find. Cara was nowhere in sight.

  Abby tapped her commlink. “Cara, you anywhere around.”

  “I can see you, Auntie. But there is a batch of hardcases behind you. I’ll come out when they go away.”

  “Those folks are no problem to you and me, Cara. They’re just a few of my friends. A few of my best friends.”

  A head ducked out from the shadows of an alley. The look on Cara’s face was dubious to the extreme, but there was also trust for her auntie, even if Auntie had taken to keeping the company of hard men.

  The girl half ran, half skipped to Abby, flooding the maid with memories of when she’d been at that wonderful butterfly stage of not quite woman, no longer child. For a moment, Abby felt young again.

  But Abby was back in the old neighborhood for ancient reasons. Ancient distrust. Ancient hatred. Ancient died blood.

  A moment after Cara gave her a hug and quick peck on the cheek, Sergeant Bruce joined them.

  “Do you have any idea where your young man is being held?” he asked, the words clipped, demanding. His eyes did not lock on either Abby or Cara, but roved the street, measuring it, looking for any movement. Behind him, other men and women in casual slacks and shirts did the same from the limited safety of the tram station’s small shadow.

  Cara glanced up at Abby. At her nod, she spoke quickly to the man. “The Bones hang at the Burrito Palace. They’re the ones that made a grab for you when you were here, Auntie. The streets emptied of Bones awhile ago. I think they got Bronc and maybe don’t know what to do about that.” The words trailed off, Cara running low on hope.

  “Where’s this Palace?” Sergeant Bruce asked, his computer projecting a photo map into the space between them. Cara pointed to a large roof several blocks away.

  There were lots of abandoned houses between here and there. Lots of places to set up an ambush.

  “Do you want to wait for second squad?” Abby said, offering him an option she hoped he would not take.

  “Ma’am, I don’t really like the idea of taking my Marines into this…with or without a second squad. However, gangers are not the kind of people who spend a whole lot of time thinking about what’s the up and down side of the stupid stuff they do. So let’s not give them a lot of time to think about us showing up on their turf. Corporal Nugent, take A team down the right side of the street. Corporal Ding, your team has the left. Oh, and you get this young lady. Take good care of her,” the sergeant said, pointing Cara to a group of four marines led by a woman.”

  Cara went where she was pointed once Abby added a quick wave of encouragement.

  “I’ll take the center of the street,” Abby offered.

  “I expected you’d want to be out here with me,” the sergeant said, with just a hint of a smile. “What do you say we go find ourselves some trouble?”

  The sun was hot. The streets were dusty and what little wind was only good to blow around the uncollected trash. Abby hated to be here, showing all the Marines the kind of place she hailed from.

  “I’m feeling downright homey,” Sergeant Bruce said, as they came to the end of the first block. “Course, this place is upscale from where I came from. I actually saw three shacks back there that might have still had running water.” His smile was tight and friendly, his voice actually gentle.

  “This place is about the way I remember it,” Abby said. “The kind of place nobody wants to admit they’re from.”

  “But can’t wait to be from.” He tapped his wrist. “Gabby, am I seeing movement on a roof up ahead.”

  “Two men, no long guns in sight, but no bet they don’t have something short, Sarge.”

  The discovery of the gang’s overwatch was no surprise to Abby. She’d caught the smell of wood smoke and human excrement wafting from one abandoned building. And the glint off of something peeking out a window.

  Where will the trap be?

  They were closing on the building with the rooftop observers when one of them jumped up and fired off two rounds that threw dust but hit nothing.

  Abby pumped a sleepy dart into him about the same time the sergeant did. The young man slumped to the roof and would have slid off it if the other one with him hadn’t grabbed for him.

  Shouting, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot me,” a girl got him stabilized beside her. “He wasn’t supposed to do that,” she added.

  Abby and Sergeant Bruce kept walking.

  “That’s the problem with gangers,” Bruce muttered. “No discipline. You Marines, you hear me,” he said, raising his voice. “I want somebody dead, you make them so. I don’t want any shooting, you keep’em cocked and locked. You hear me?”

  “Ooo-Rah” came back at him.

  Abby measured the words…and the voice. He could have said it on net, but he’d said it loud…to the hood. Be interesting to see how the other side took it.

  They walked another dusty block.

  Abby could make out movement now in the shadows behind shattered windows. Broken and rotted floors creaked as people tried, unsuccessfully, to either stay out of sight and out of mind…or keep up with the squad as it advanced on their Crypt.

  “These Bones rattle too much,” Sergeant Bruce said with a professional smile.

  “You know if they’re carrying heat?” Abby asked. She was discovering just how glad she was not to be doing this alone.

  “Gabby, any report on weapons in sight or sensor range?”

  “Sarge, we got a lot of rapid heartbeats around us, a few are following along with us, but I’m not sniffing any explosives. You’ll know the second I do.”

  “You be sure of that,” Bruce said, then said aside to Abby, “You keeping track of Second and the motor brigade’s doing?”

  Abby glanced at her wrist unit. “Second squad is just pulling into the tram station. The motorized contingent should reach the station about the same time as Second.”

  “So lets try not to start anything before they get here, what do you say, Ms. Custer?”

  “You’re Marines, Sarge, not Army cavalry,” Abby said, proud that she could match the sergeant’s historical reference.

  “If you could cook, I’d have to consider marrying you. By the way, that was good shooting back there. I hit the right shoulder, you hit the left.”

  “Hate to tell you, but I can’t even boil water safely,” Abby said, deflecting something she might want to come back to later.

  “Tend to dump it over some obnoxious guy’s head, huh? Well, us Marines are many things, but not obnoxious.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll think about that. I think that’s the Burrito Palace in the next block. I see folks on the roof and the front porch.” That ended conversation.

  The gang’s hangout was a wood and stucco two story. Once it might have been a nice home, when it was painted and the stucco wasn’t falling off. The front porch was shaded by a balcony that had it’s own tables under sun-faded umbrellas.

  Over a dozen men, with a similar count of women, slouched in the chairs above and below.

  “Gabby, talk to me about this Palace.”

  “I got the pitter-patter of thirty fast-beating hearts inside. These folks are nervous. I’m picking up ammo. Lots of exits from that building. Back, sides, as well as front.”

  “What about the place across the street?”

  “Empty. Totally empty. You think, Sarge, maybe these folks know better than to set up an ambush that puts themselves in their own crossfire?”

  “Wouldn’t put them past it. Nugent, bring your team across the street. We’ll let them have the right side of the street. We’ll take the left.”

  A minute later, the squad was deployed across from the Bones, relaxing in the shade. But not taking their eyes off the Palace. Or their hands far from their service automatics.

  In the morning heat, the tram bell rang out. Second would be arriving at the station. Did Abby pick up the deep throated hum of the motor rigs with Kris and the Marine captain?

  It was time to act.

  Abby stepped forward…and found Bruce ambling along at her side.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “But nobody said I couldn’t. I got good corporals. Lets me have some fun now and then.”

  “Marines!” Abby said in exasperation.

  “Ain’t this why you love us so much” was no question.

  But “What you doing at our Crypt. You ready to be Bones?” was what got Abby’s attention.

  “I’ve come to talk,” Abby said, voice even and clear.

  Across the street from her, a punk with bad acne and a worse leer shook his head. “Shows what you know about the Bones. We don’t talk to you. We do you.”