Kris Longknife's Assassin

by Mike Shepherd

  “Not in my book. Secondly, your First Citizen is down on South Continent. Me blowing up this station would hardly ruffle the hair on his head.”

  “Yes, but you might be trading a queen for a queen?”

  Kris Longknife glanced at Vicky before going on. “That does not even qualify as a jest, General. No offense, Vicky, but I am a full-fledged queen in this game the likes of which your general and my admiral play. You are at best a pawn, maybe someday to be a queen, but you have a way to go.”

  “No offense taken,” Vicky said before stepping forward. “Now, Uncle Eddie are we going to sit here arguing who might be doing something while doing nothing for my daddy. Are the rumors true that you’d just as soon see him dead? Is that why you sit here jabbering while time ticks away from the one ship that could save his life?”

  Under Vicky’s upbraiding, the man went from board stiff to solid marble. “It was necessary for me to assure myself that a treacherous Longknife was not playing us for fools. They’ve done that often enough.”

  “That is why I’m aboard. I have satisfied myself that this ship can do this difficult evolution,” Vicky shot back.

  “Maybe you would like State Security’s best troops to take over the ship and do what is necessary.”

  “Eddie, when I need your State Security hacks to gun down a few hundred unarmed peasants, I’ll call you. I need a ship sailed and a battle fought and won. Let’s leave that to a crew that knows how to do it.”

  “Yes, Citizen Victoria,” the general said, almost bowing. “May I send a security team to assure your safety?”

  “If you wish, but make them few and see that they keep out of the way. Oh, and send us a different colonel. One that isn’t the dullest in your collection.”

  “Yes, Citizen Victoria. If you will excuse me, I will see that these things are done.”

  “One more thing. This ship needs power. Have the station give it full access to electricity.” She turned to Captain Krätz. “What about plasma?”

  “That would take too long. Electricity will do.”

  “To hear is to obey,” the general said and rang off.

  The silence on the bridge was broken only by the necessary sounds of a space ship. Pumps pumping, fans spun. Here and there, a light blinked. No one spoke.

  Captain Krätz was still white as a sheet.

  Kris Longknife took Vicky by the elbow. “Ah, you may have been a little hard on that general, Ensign.”

  Vicky worried her lower lip. “You think so. Always when he came around the house, he was so friendly. Almost fawning. A new toy when I was young. A fancy dress later. After he was gone, Daddy would say things like ‘two faced.’ That comment about shooting peasants, that was one of Daddy’s.”

  “But did he ever say it to his face?” Kris asked.

  Vicky thought for a moment, then said, embarrassed. “You’re right. I don’t remember him actually saying it to him.”

  “You might want to tell your dad when next you see him that that particular cat is out of the bag,” Captain Krätz said.

  “We’re getting extra power from the station,” the lieutenant announced. “I’m sending it straight to Engineering.”

  “Well, he’s carrying out his orders,” Kris’s captain said. “Now let’s see how huge Princess Vicky’s security team is.

  “I’m not a princess,” Vicky snapped, “except I guess you have a point. My dad is acting like an emperor or something and that kind of makes me a princess or something.”

  “Mostly, it makes you a target or something,” Kris said, but softened it with a chuckle.

  Five minutes later, Vicky watched a large squad of black uniformed security types double timed up to the gangway. A Marine team just as large met them there.

  “I know that colonel,” Vicky said, watched the exchange. “He’s got a head on his shoulder and he uses it.”

  “Let’s see how good he is,” Kris said and tapped her commlink. “Gunny, advise the new colonel that this ship will be doing 3 plus gee’s when we sortie to contact. High gee stations will be limited by space on the bridge. If he wants, he may join Citizen Victoria on the bridge. You’ll need to find space and stations for the rest of the team he brings aboard.”

  In silence, they watched the exchange took place. The colonel turned to talk to his captain who listened, saluted, shouted orders and led the squad aboard.

  Kris’s Gunny and the Vicky’s colonel watched them go, then boarded the Wasp together.

  “That went smoothly enough,” Vicky said.

  “Captain Drago,” Kris said, “We’re going to need some high gee stations on this bridge real soon now.”

  “I’ve got a chief working on that. What station will you take, Your Highness?”

  “Weapons, Captain, “came hard. Suddenly Vicky realized that if someone was to shoot out the engines on the line it would be Kris Longknife. And if those shots destroyed the ship and killed the five thousand souls aboard, it would also fall on Kris.

  Kris turned toward the bridge hatch. “Sulwan, could you send the information on the Tourin to my Tac Room?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Vicky was starting to match faces with names. Captain Drago. Lieutenant Sulwan.

  Kris was half talking to herself. “Nelly, if you have any spare capacity, could you search for more data on the Tourin?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” came back in a raw computer voice. Apparently, even Nelly could get busy.

  “Let me check with my political officer,” Captain Krätz said. “He may have information that has not been published.”

  He did, but he most certainly would not send it to a Wardhaven ship. Krätz tried reasoning with him. That didn’t work. He was on the verge of losing his temper when Ensign Peterwald stepped forward and raised his commlink to her lips.

  “This is Citizen Victoria Peterwald, daughter to the First Citizen,” was cut from the hardest stone in Vicky’s gut. “His life is in danger. Is it your intent to hinder the fight to save him?”

  “No, ma’am.” came back in a stutter.

  “Then get those plans and files over here or I will personably go over there and see you shot.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The files are on the way.”

  Vicky released her captain’s wrist. He retrieved his arm as if he wasn’t sure it was still attached to him.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Vicky said. “I know that is not how you taught me to lead. However, that is what I learned in my dad’s lap. I am just starting to learn that there is a time to do things your way ... and a time to do things Dad’s way.”

  “It’s not an easy lesson,” Kris Longknife said.

  “No,” Vicky agreed easily as she looked into her soul and found it divided now: part Navy, part something else. “You are right, Kris. It is not at all easy. Was it like this for you?”

  “I think you’ll find it harder. I get the feeling there’s a bigger gap between the way your dad does things and the Navy way and the way my father goes about his business and the Navy way.”

  “That’s something I hope we can talk about.”

  “First we save your dad.”

  Chapter 28

  Kris’s conference room was just the way they left it. One chair had been overturned in the hasty exit.

  One wall now showed a schematic of the Dedicated Workers of Tourin. The wall next to it was covered with opened files. The wall across from it showed ... a spider web. Beside it was a series of file not found, and similar error messages.

  At the table, a pot-bellied chief was alternately cursing, pulling his hair out or pounding on his own large unit that he’d plugged into the board. He looked up as Kris came in. “What kind of junk is this we’re getting from that Peterwald ship? Are they trying to bring down our main ship’s computer?”

  “They better not be,” Vicky growled, and rattled off her personal password. The wall of spider webbing blinked black for a moment, then came up steady with a schematic of the Tourin not at all different
from that on the opposite wall.

  Vicky found a chair and watched Kris Longknife study what State Security had provided. It didn’t mean a lot to Vicky, and Kris wasn’t in a talkative mood.

  “Do we target the bridge?” Kris mused, half to herself, half to those around her. Captain Drago had stayed on his own bridge. The one captain among them shook his head.

  “I don’t think the bridge will get you anything,” Captain Krätz said. “There’s a backup control room well aft, just before Engineering.” On one of the schematic behind Kris, a space glowed red. “These liners are intended to be easily converted to either troop transports, or, if big lasers are provided, ships able to stand against anything but a battleship.”

  “Might explain your security man’s reluctance to provide this to us,” one of Kris’s staff said. Speaking of State Security, the colonel arrived just as Kris was muttering, “How do we damage a starliner with five thousand souls aboard.”

  “Why damage it?” the colonel snapped. “Just blow up.”

  That brought a strained silence.

  “Kris,” Vicky said in a low voice, “that is how I feel too. It’s my dad’s life we’re talking about.”

  “Your dad and a whole lot of people down on that planet,” Kris agreed. “But it’s not as easy as that. Anyone have the kinetic power of one of our pulse lasers.”

  “I’ve got it,” another Navy lieutenant said. “Entered it before that battle above Chance and never purged it.”

  Vicky swallowed hard at the mention of the battle in which her brother died. She also eyed the lieutenant hard, memorizing her face.

  She looked back just as hard. “A lot of us fought at Chance, and my husband died stopping those battleships above Wardhaven.”

  Vicky started to open her mouth.

  Kris cut her off. “Enough, girls. A lot of people are hurting from a lot of things that might have been better not done. Today, we have today’s problems. Captain, can you tell us something about the thickness of the hide on this thing? The decks and strength girders.”

  “That is a state secret,” the colonel pointed out.

  “You can keep the secret and start looking for a new head of state, or you can tell us and maybe we can save your First Citizen’s life. Your call, or should I have Miss Victoria call Lieutenant General Boyng again?” Kris Longknife snapped.

  The colonel in black looked like he’d swallowed something bitter, but he nodded Captain Krätz’s way. The captain ran off a list of numbers.

  The lieutenant fed them into her computer, then announcing. “Not good. We’ll achieve complete burn through, one side to the other, using only 25% of the power of one of our four pulse lasers.”

  “So we can punch four or maybe sixteen holes in this can,” Kris said. “Can we slice it in half? Quarters? Sixteenths?”

  “Half, definitely. Maybe into three chunks. Not four,” the lieutenant said.

  “And they would hit the planet in three places with one third the power,” the army colonel said.

  “No,” Kris said at the same time Krätz did. Kris deferred to Vicky’s captain.

  “If we do anything to the engines as we pass, the ship stops accelerating. Its course assumes that it will keep its acceleration constant right up to collision. If we stop its acceleration, it will miss the planet entirely.”

  “Assuming they do not change its course,” the security colonel snapped. “Just one hit in the right part of its power plant and the containment field collapses. The ship and terrorists vanish and we have no more problem.”

  “Kris ...” Vicky said, not quite pleading.

  “That is an option,” Kris said slowly. “But it is my last option. I did not put on this uniform to kill five thousand people whose only crime was buying a ticket to ride or taking a job to pander to them. Am I understood, Colonel?”

  Kris locked eyes with the man from State Security. He glared right back at her.

  “My duty is to the state, and the First Citizen.”

  “And you know way too much about blowing up a ship for my liking and seem only too quick to blow one up.”

  “Enough the two of you!” Vicky shouted. “If you don’t want to hit the electric generators, what do you intend to hit?”

  Kris ran her hands along the schematic on the wall. “The bridge, the living spaces have no value to us. The colonel is right, we need to hit the engineering area,” she said, coming to rest there. “The question is how do we cripple the ship and drive it so far off course that it can’t help but miss.” For the next five minutes Vicky tried to follow a discussion that was way above her training.

  I’ll have to read a lot more to get up to her level.

  What was clear to Vicky was that the discussion kept coming back to hitting the power plant. The State Security colonel kept wanting to blow out the reactors. Kris Longknife kept refusing.

  Vicky finally entered the heated argument. “I do not understand anything about power planet. Still I trust Kris Longknife will hit what she is aiming at.”

  “I tell you she is wrong.” The security colonel snapped.

  “Don’t be tiresome, colonel. It is the measures of State Security that have left my captain’s ship a beached observer of this drama. Has someone chosen to take advantage of your brain dead measures or were State Security’s orders a integral part of this plan? I wonder.”

  The colonel opened his mouth several times before, “Of course not. You can’t even think such things,” finally got out.

  “Oh, but I can, and I think my dad will, if he lives. Captain Krätz, may I have a word with you? In private.”

  The ensign led the captain into the passageway. The colonel made to follow, but several of Kris’s staff got in his way. Vicky had the door closed behind them and held it closed. “Captain, nothing about this smells right. How did these hayseeds, to use Kris’s words, get control of a huge liner? Why are none of our ships in any condition to intercept it?”

  “State Security failed at one end and arranged for the mess at the other,” Captain Krätz said.

  “Can the Navy do anything to protect, either my dad or itself from State Security?

  “I will need to make some calls on a secure line with a coded phone.”

  “Please do so.

  Captain Krätz left to make his calls. Vicky waited for his return. When he did, she opened the door and allowed the colonel to join them. He acted like nothing had happened. Together, they headed for the bridge.

  Chapter 29

  They arrived as Kris’s Captain Drago announced, “We have fusion. We are growing the plasma core. Thank God we are taking electricity directly from the core. Give me another five minutes and I’ll be ready to jump start Reactor B. Sortie in fifteen minutes, Princess.”

  “What do you mean you’re drawing power directly from the core?” Captain Krätz demanded as he escorted Vicky onto the bridge. The Security colonel said nothing, but seemed intent on looking at everything.

  “Something we can’t talk about,” one captain said to the other. “However, we do have plasma and should be underway in half an hour.” Drago tapped his commlink. “Set getting underway details, minimum.” Throughout the ship, came the noise of hands moving to stations.

  Captain Krätz settled into a high-gee couch next to Captain Drago’s station. The State Security colonel was parked at the rear of the bridge where he could see everything and touch nothing. He had several marines around him.

  Exactly thirty minutes from when Captain Drago said he could get the Wasp underway, the pier tiedowns began to rattle backwards and the Wasp smartly backed away from the dock.

  “Nelly, start an intercept clock,” Kris ordered. A clock before her began to count down. 3 hr 24 min 24.242 sec was its initial display, but it quickly changed.

  Vicky settled down at Kris’s elbow in what the Wardhaven people called a high gee station. Kind of like a baby’s stroller, Vicky could lower her back and raise her legs. The cushion could also inflate. Maybe this Wardhav
en tech would work.

  Kris seemed busy, lost in things Vicky knew nothing about, although she did her best to track her. With her computer’s help, Kris had just tried something she liked.

  “That’s optimum?” she said.

  “Yes,” Nelly answered. “We’d need all the luck in the world to pull that off.”

  Vicky raised an eyebrow.

  “Nelly’s been reading fiction for several years now. It makes her easier to talk to.”

  “Makes you easier to understand,” the computer shot back.

  “Assuming we have all the luck in the world,” Vicky said

  “Assuming,” Kris agreed.

  “Is it always like this?” Vicky asked.

  “Always like what?”

  “Your planning. You start with one plan. Bounce it around among your team, get it better, then have some others look at it and it keeps getting better.”

  Kris seemed to think for a moment. “It was like this at Wardhaven.” Then Kris shook her head and began again. “At Chance, your brother didn’t give us a lot of time to plan.”

  “Do you think he’d be alive if he had?” Vicky asked, this time meaning an honest question.

  “I really don’t know. I tried to talk him down. He had a Captain with him, just like you do, but he was the Commodore, and I understand Captain Slovo spent the first half of the battle in the brig.”

  “Poor planning on my brother’s part,” Vicky said with a shrug.

  “And part of the reason you’re an ensign.”

  “That’s the story of my life, doing penance for my brother’s sins. What about on Eden, did you plan for that?”

  “Not for any of the things you threw my way. Those were run and shoot, shoot and run affairs.”

  “I didn’t do any planning,” Vicky said, shaking her head. “Just hired who I could find available. Very poor planning on my part.”

  “I hope you aren’t thinking of having me plan your next assassination attempt on me.” Kris said. Vicky heard a joke, well, maybe half of one.

  “No. I’m sorry Kris. I’m not ever planning another attack on you.” State Security, maybe, but not me.