To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel)

by Mike Shepherd

  “For a farm girl, you know an awful lot about high finance,” Graven frowned.

  “Just because we didn’t want all the expensive doodads doesn’t mean we’re ignorant. And I’ve had good reason to study Savannah for the last week. Some things just don’t add up.”

  “They do when you have all the pieces,” Graven told them. “What they built on Savannah did sell for top dollar, just like Earth stuff. But that didn’t mean a lot of the money stayed here. Take a big fusion generator, for example. Certain high-value parts, like gears and turbines aren’t made here. They have to be imported from one of Earth’s big orbital plants. And strangely enough, most of the profits in the generator’s construction get sucked right back to Earth to pay for those parts.”

  “Wouldn’t that close them down when the war started?” Ruth asked.

  “Should have. Absent a large inventory of critical parts, Savannah’s factories should have become ghost towns in a few days, weeks at the most.”

  “How many Daring class cruisers did Savannah contribute to the Unity effort?” Trouble asked, then answered his own question. “Thirty, forty?”

  “Thirty-seven,” Graven corrected. “Each with three generators. General Fusion only has local warehousing capacity for a dozen of the Earth-supplied critical parts.”

  “So somebody was shipping them turbines from Earth during the war.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “Is that what the committee is here to find out?” Ruth asked.

  Graven chuckled wickedly. “Hay is showing in your hair, darling. I’ve seen the list. I know their backgrounds. Three or four of them might be here to dig. Trust me, the others are here to bury it as fast as those four uncover it.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Trouble asked.

  “Doing the job we came here to do. That’s all any of us can do. The job we hired on for. Sometimes, we get to do a thing or two before anyone up there knows what’s happening. As I understand it, that’s what you two did on Riddle. Must have been fun.”

  Ruth and Trouble looked at each other and shook their heads at the same moment.

  “No, trust me on this one,” Ruth said, “it wasn’t fun at all.”

  SEVEN

  COLONEL RAY LONGKNIFE watched his wife ready herself for bed. For two long months, he’d held himself together with memories like these. He took a deep breath of her scent, content to just refresh the recollection . . . for the moment.

  As she brushed out her long hair, it fell over her bare shoulders. In the mirror, Ray watched as her diaphanous gown flowed over and around the gentle swell of her belly. Thin straps struggled to hold her now-enlarged breasts and frequently failed, as darkening areolas played peekaboo with him.

  Ray thoroughly enjoyed the view.

  Quickly, he finished undressing so Rita could see how much he enjoyed the view. She smiled wickedly at him, settled the last hair in place, and turned to gasp in mock surprise. “Soldier, you must have been gone a long time, to find an old married hag like me so . . .”

  “Not long enough for you to become an old married hag, young woman, now get over here, and I’ll show you how long I’ve been gone.”

  “But you’ve been back ten whole days.” She sighed as she came to stand above him.

  “It’s not the days, woman, but the nights.”

  “And such nights.” She laid herself down beside him in one languid motion. “Baby’s enjoying the visits. He’d been about to put out a sign on the front lawn, baby available for rent, apply within.”

  “The only thing getting within is me, woman,” Ray growled, but his fingers were gentle as he explored the silken flesh of her breasts and made widening circles toward her thighs.

  “Oh yes,” she murmured.

  Ray was home from the wars. Home from the stars. And now he had legs, real legs. He didn’t have to just lie there, waiting for her to do something.

  Damn it was good to have his legs back underneath him. Or in this case, above her.

  * * *

  President Steffo Milassi signed the commission with a tired flourish. Horatio Whitebred was now a full admiral in the Savannah Navy.

  Which ought to keep that idiot Peterwald happy for a whole five minutes. Didn’t the man know that navies did not win elections!

  Then again, if the stories he’d heard about Riddle were right, navies certainly could lose elections.

  Milassi sighed. It had been a long day, full of meetings with lamebrained henchmen who had plenty of muscle. Unfortunately, they were clueless as the pavement they stumbled over when it came to using the power Milassi gave them in order to keep it.

  Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get good help.

  Take that whimpering Society of Humanity ambassador. He now had fifty more Marines to guard his door. Did the fool really think he was in any danger?

  Hell, nothing happened in Petrograd, nothing happened on Savannah without Milassi’s writ.

  And Steffo wasn’t about to get Earth any more involved on Savannah than it already was. He made a marginal notation, adding an extra block to the no-violence zone around the damn embassy.

  Best not to risk the ambassador’s even seeing a head being bashed in.

  Steffo was about to go on to the next report when his eyes fell on the last paragraph.

  A woman had landed with the Marines . . . a ship’s farmer. What in the name of hell was a “ship’s farmer”?

  That forced him to turn another page. Even Earth couldn’t be dumb enough to put farms on warships! He made a notation to his flatfoots to follow that woman.

  There had to be more to this story.

  Then, again, maybe it was just part of Earth’s effort to prevent local farmers from getting their hands on hard Earth currency.

  Steffo started to scratch through his order, then chose to leave it in place for a few days. It wouldn’t hurt his hounds to follow her around a bit.

  Intelligence hounds couldn’t be used for the more blunt bits of election campaigning. If the ones asking questions also broke heads, people began to avoid them.

  Milassi had learned the benefit of keeping the two apart.

  Milassi rubbed his eyes, letting them wander for a few moments over the trappings of money and power that surrounded him. He snorted; they were nothing but a prison.

  He laughed as he turned to the next report, a list of troublemakers who needed to be rounded up before the senators arrived. This prison was much to be preferred to the ones he sent these problems off to.

  He scribbled his initials on that report and went to the next.

  * * *

  Ray lay spooned around his wife, his chest to Rita’s back. His hand measuring the slowing race of her heart. He had brought exquisite pleasure to the woman he loved, and now it had given way to tranquil sleep.

  He felt like he could leap any mountain in the worlds.

  His hand moved lower, coming to rest on the bulge of her belly. Rita said she could feel the baby moving. Ray held his hand lightly there, but that miracle of budding life eluded him.

  “I’m here, little one. I’m back.”

  And I’ll be leaving again soon, came to him, unbidden.

  Ray sighed. Yes, he would be going out again. But not for long.

  I’ll be back real soon, little one. Real soon.

  Ray rolled over on his back, slowed his own breathing, and prepared for sleep. A fast run to Savannah couldn’t cause all that much trouble, could it?

  In his head, a quick course for Savannah played out. Just three jumps using the ones only he knew about now, after Santa Maria.

  Unbidden, a second route superimposed itself on the first. This one was six jumps. And deep in the system of the fourth one . . .

  Sleep came to Ray . . . and dreams.

  * * *

  Morning light played on the ceiling as Ray slowly came awake to the gentle touch of fingers playing in the hair on his chest.

  He smiled.

  “Make us late
for work,” Rita breathed throatily.

  He reached for her, kissed her. For a long time, nothing else mattered.

  As he lay beside her, catching his breath, her grip on his hand tightened. “You’re dreaming more now.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, not taking his eyes from the ceiling, from the unseen stars that still haunted his vision. “I kind of had to learn to trust my dreams.”

  Rita rolled over on her side, rested a hand against his cheek. “You have all those star charts locked in your skull. You have to let us get them out. I’m converting the three pirate ships we captured at Riddle into scout cruisers like the Second Chance. The Wild Goose class, we’re calling them. They can spread out, using your charts. Think of what they’ll find for our baby!”

  Her other hand went to rest on the bulge below her heart.

  Ray smiled. His wife was a dreamer, a tiger, all those and more. She had been enthusiastic about exploration before the baby.

  Now she was a fanatic.

  “I’m meeting with a group of astronomers who have some ideas about how to match what I know with what they have in their databases,” Ray said. “In a day or two, they should have enough to keep our ships busy for the next year.”

  “In a day or two?” she echoed, both hands now on her tummy.

  Ray rolled into a sitting position, pulled Rita into his arms. “A day or two will be enough.”

  “I want you to stay here until the baby comes.”

  “I’ll be here when the baby comes.”

  Rita pulled away from him. In a flash of flying pillows, blankets, and sheets, she was on her feet. “You want to go out again? Last time almost killed you! For God sakes, man, haven’t you done enough for any ten men?”

  Ray took a deep breath. It was going to be a long morning. The ministry would just have to manage on its own while the two of them had it out.

  EIGHT

  RUTH HEADED OUT the front door of the embassy, flashing a sunny smile at the young Marines on guard duty in reply to their salutes. She was at the curb before she noticed that there was no one waiting for her under the tree across the way by the river. As she came to a halt to consider what might have happened to the kids, a cab rolled up.

  “Need a ride, lady?” the bewhiskered man behind the wheel called through the open window.

  “Not at the moment,” Ruth answered automatically, still scanning the rolling green of the riverbank for any sign of two kids.

  “I know Petrograd. I can find you anything you want. Anything. Nothing goes on around here I don’t know about.” He smiled with absolute confidence.

  “Thanks.” Ruth innocently smiled back. “I’m just starting my day off with a walk. My husband’s a Marine, and he’s already done a three-mile run,” she added by way of explanation.

  Trouble had had the gall to wake her up at “oh dark early” with a grin and a suggestion she join him.

  She’d hit him with the only thing handy—a pillow. Tonight, she’d arrange to have something heavier at hand. Like the combat rations they’d had for breakfast.

  Even split four ways, that thing was still heavy in her stomach.

  “Have it your way,” the cabby said and gunned away, leaving Ruth in a shower of gravel from the worn road and fumes from his tailpipe.

  Can’t anyone around here tune a motor?

  Ruth headed for a wooden bench looking out over the wide, cobbled promenade facing the river. As she suspected, the kids were hiding in it, huddled behind its high back.

  “What are you two doing?”

  “Don’t talk to us. Just sit on the bench. Is the Bear gone?” the boy whispered quickly.

  Ruth sat down beside the boy and looked out on the river rather than at the kids. “The Bear?”

  “The fuzzy-faced cabdriver,” he said. “He works for the crushers.”

  “Crushers?”

  “Blues. Black boots,” the boy hurried on, frustrated at the failure to communicate.

  “You mean the police,” Ruth offered.

  “Police,” the boy echoed, frowning in puzzlement at his sister.

  Both the kids looked much better today than they had the day before. They had washed off a couple of pounds of dirt. Both sported new, if badly worn, shoes.

  Ruth decided to try another approach. “What do the crushers, ah, black boots do?”

  “They keep us out of this part of town,” Sister offered. “Rat’s still seeing double from the kick the Bear gave him in the head.”

  “They twist the bigger girls, make them pay rent for their corners. Break our arms if they find us sleeping around parks. Crushers,” he said, as if the word said it all.

  Ruth decided it did. She’d had no idea the risks she was asking the kids to take when she told them to meet her here. “You two stay put. I’ll bring the car around and honk for you. You come running then.”

  The kids nodded with understanding.

  Ruth stood, stretching lazily as she took in the river-park area. No one was walking along the promenade. Some traffic roared across the bridge into the government center, but none looked interested in two kids huddled on a park bench. She checked traffic along the road in front of the embassy.

  Bear and his cab were gone.

  Casually, Ruth sauntered back to the embassy. The Marines saluted; she smiled.

  On her way to the car, she did a quick detour to their quarters for her sidearm.

  Izzy had warned Ruth that Savannah had strict laws against civilian weapons. Since Ruth was a civilian, her military automatic was anathema and could easily land her so deep in the local jail that they’d never dig her out.

  Ruth checked the weapon, made sure she had plenty of both nonlethal and lethal rounds, checked again to make sure her bra had the locator beacon Trouble had insisted she sew into its lining.

  Only then did she trot out to the car.

  Why, oh why, did I ever leave Hurtford Corner? Trouble, you better come home early tonight. And horny, too.

  * * *

  Ray drove them to the ministry building. As Rita had asked, they were late.

  The ride, however, was silent. Rita sat like a stone Madonna on her side of the car. As the elevator carried them up, she said to the door in front of her, “You meet with your stargazers and shrinks. I’ll keep the paperwork moving. Can’t let the ministry collapse around our heads.”

  “Thank you, dear,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me,” she snapped. “I’m doing it for me and my baby. Not for you.”

  “I still appreciate it.”

  “You might show some of that appreciation around here a bit more often.”

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “Damn it, woman, they’ve fixed the ship.”

  “And what will go wrong next?” she fired back at him, as the elevator door opened onto four people waiting for a ride.

  They took one look at Ray and Rita and took several steps back.

  After a moment, the doors closed on Rita’s silent anger, returning them to the appearance of intimacy.

  “Rita, I could get killed crossing the street. This damn elevator could fall. Hell, wife, you knew I was a soldier when you married me.”

  Rita slapped the STOP button. “Yes. I knew you were a soldier. Damn it, I carried you out there to die. I brought you back and put the pieces together, then took you off to kill Urm and yourself. I did all the things a good soldier’s wife should do. And you got discharged, remember? Check that ID card you carry. R-E-T-I-R-E-D. The war’s over. Baby and I have paid our dues. So when are you going to quit chasing after a new place to die?”

  The tears were streaming down her face now.

  He took two steps to her, folded his arms around her. She was stiff as a board. He caressed her hair.

  “Honey, I’m not going out to war. I’m just going to a business meeting. Your dad has gone to a million of them. I’ll spend my days with people in gray and brown business suits. No uni
forms this time. These are politicians from Earth I need to talk to. Just a few days. Then I’ll be headed right back here. I promise. This time is different. I’m not a soldier anymore.”

  She seemed to relax. “You’re not a soldier anymore.”

  “Yes, honey, no uniform. Just look at me.” Ray stepped away.

  Her eyes flitted up and down the conservative gray suit he’d put on today. “You’re back’s too damn straight for a businessman.”

  Ray hunched his shoulders and stooped over. She laughed through her tears. “Why do you have to go now?”

  “The senators are visiting Savannah.”

  “Savannah. Why does it have to be Savannah?”

  Ray straightened himself back up, then shrugged his shoulders. “Why is it any place? It just is.”

  “Mr. Raymond Longknife, civilian, once this baby is born, we will fit out a lead-lined room on the Second Chance for you, me, and a nursery. Next time you go gallivanting, we all gallivant.”

  “Most certainly, Senior Pilot Nuu,” he said as he bent to kiss his wife.

  “Discharged,” she mumbled around his kiss.

  “Definitely,” he agreed.

  NINE

  RUTH DROVE WHERE the kids directed. They were showing her the sights, and in not a few cases, probably seeing them for the first time themselves.

  Her “native guides” had a lot of holes in their knowledge. The computer helped. It presented Ruth with an official sightseeing list.

  For this morning, Ruth followed it as she struggled to get her bearings in a town a hundred times larger than any on Hurtford Corner. At least, it seemed that way.

  Initially, somebody had put some thought into planning this city. Wide boulevards quartered the city, north, south, east, west, with trolleys providing easy public transport.

  The Anna River flowed in from the northwest and out to the southeast. A wide expressway drew a circle around the city center three mile out from Government Center.

  There should have been additional circles six, nine, and twelve miles out, but urban sprawl had gotten ahead of planning.