Kris Longknife: Defiant: Defiant

by Mike Shepherd

  That day nothing like that happened at Port Winslow. More tough talk in public, another dinner-dance party that night, and over cocktails talk of district lines cut along this natural boundary or that population limit, criteria for taxing cities to pay for opening up new lands for youngsters.

  Two days later, they flew into Port Brisbane at the foot of an imposing snow-covered mountain range. A river and a lake provided its essential water. Its hinterland propelled its growth with food, fiber, metals, and oil. The cocktail debate was whether it or Stanley—the Port was rarely appended now in conversations—would be the new capital, or co-capital with Nui Nui. Not all the friction was Mainland versus Islander.

  The speeches were blessedly short and done at the airport. There were no protestors lining the streets as they drove directly to the convention center. Abby led a second caravan to the two hotels the entourage now took up.

  Well-practiced, Penny went to the command post the local constabulary established on site. Tom and Sam kept close to Princess Aholo as inconspicuously as two good-looking young guys could. And Kris and Jack did their own wide-ranging walk-around.

  The convention center was huge, as befitted Brisbane, and on three levels, with an airy gathering space dividing the two main work areas. On the south side were three huge exhibit halls. The middle-level hall had been arranged for the proto-assembly. The upper and lower halls were reserved for growth, caucuses, media, whatever came up. On the other side of the gathering areas were breakout rooms, over two dozen of various sizes, as well as several places to get something to eat quickly. More formal restaurants were across the streets or in the hotels near the convention center. It reminded Kris of some of the better centers she’d been confined to during Father’s campaigns on Wardhaven. High praise from her perspective.

  “We’re starting to get organized in here,” Tom reported.

  “We’ve got a newly installed security camera giving us fits in meeting room nine,” Penny reported.

  “We’re just down from it,” Kris reported. “We’ll check it.” But a Brisbane cop and repairman were first through the door. They died in a hail of automatic fire for that honor.

  As Jack returned fire from the side of the door, Kris shouted into her commlink, “Officer down. Breakout room nine.”

  Somewhere in the building there was an explosion. Somewhere there were bursts after bursts of automatic weapons fire. Police pistols sounded puny as they answered. All too quickly there was little return fire.

  “Tom,” Penny shouted on net. Static answered her.

  6

  “My comm’s jammed,” Jack muttered as he fired a two-round burst, ducked back, and got no answering fire. He knelt and peered out at knee level. No more fire from that room.

  “Help me check these out,” he said, cautiously entering the room. The cop and tech’s bodies oozed blood and looked beyond hope. Two men in service uniforms, assault rifles close where they’d dropped them, lay just inside a back door. One moaned.

  “Grab him and get out of here,” Kris said. Jack picked up the rifle as they did. Outside, they made for the nearest exit . . . and ran into two cops running in. They handed off their load.

  “Where’s Bill?” the tall cop demanded.

  Jack shook his head.

  “We’ve got to go in there,” the tall cop insisted.

  There was more automatic fire. Kris wanted to head back in, too. But not while she was outgunned and as disorganized as this. “Penny, are you out?”

  “We’ve evacuated the command center to the Hotel Brisbane’s lobby. Can you rally here?”

  “Do the local police have a SWAT force?”

  “No.”

  “National guard? Anybody with weapons like we’re facing?”

  There was a pause. “No, Kris. Guy here says they don’t have shit like this here.”

  “They do now. Nelly, get me the Halsey.”

  “Commander Santiago, here,” took less than a second.

  “Captain, we have a hostage situation.” Kris quickly filled Santiago in. “I need any individual and crew-served weapons you can spare, and people to train the locals on how to use them,” she finished.

  “Are you in a secure location?”

  “No,” Jack shouted over Kris’s “Yes.”

  “I’m dispatching the gig to Brisbane to collect you, Princess. My orders are to keep you safe. You ain’t just now. You can watch the situation from up here while it develops.”

  “But the best time to intervene in this kind of a situation is while it’s still developing,” Kris pointed out.

  “If you have trained troops who know what to do,” Jack reminded Kris. “We don’t. Captain, she’ll be at the airport.”

  “See you there, Agent.”

  Two hours later, a livid Kris stormed from the gig to the Halsey’s Combat Information Center, the fighting heart of the destroyer. The CIC’s walls were wrapped in workstations reporting the condition of the ship and space around it. In the middle was a battle board. There her captain sat, both elbows on a board that, instead of tracking space, pictured a small bit of ground dirtside.

  “I’m here. What’s developing down there?”

  “Nothing since you left. One of the reasons I was hoping you would,” Santiago said dryly.

  “No more shooting?”

  “Nothing from inside the building. The police have set up a cordon one block out, facing in. Another one two blocks farther out, facing out. They’ve about completed their evacuation. Not easy, considering they just closed down the heart of Brisbane’s commercial district. They’ve got a call out to constabularies for three hundred kilometers around, and most of them are sending detachments, but, since this has never been done, and everyone’s a bit nervous about their own backyard just now, things are going slow.”

  “Could you drop some Marines on the roof and we take the terrorists down right now?”

  “No, because my Marines would be dead before they hit the deck.”

  Kris blinked and silently eyed the Captain.

  “They’ve set up a radar on the roof. Docile little thing. Comes on every thirty seconds. Does a sweep. Always on the same frequency. Cuts off. Want to bet if we try to jam it or if it catches something coming in that it will take off frequency jumping and lead us in a merry chase? And they have jokers walking the building roof. What you want to bet me they have seeking missiles on their belts?”

  “Have you tried to infiltrate nano recon bugs?”

  The Captain scowled. “You trying to teach your mother to suck eggs, Lieutenant? I sent them down on the gig that brought you up. First one burned thirty seconds after it got in. They phoned to say they’d shoot a hostage if we sent another one in.”

  “Think they mean it?” Kris asked.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “That a live picture of the building?” Kris asked, pointing at an aerial of the convention center and deciding questions might make for an easier relationship with this destroyer skipper.

  “Yes, I launched several satellites out of the Halsey’s stores when this started. We’ll have one continuously.”

  “But we don’t know what’s going on inside,” Kris grumbled.

  “Not quite true,” Penny said. “Their jammer has closed down the center’s comm net, but it has a range limit. We’ve got a woman inside just on the limit of that range. She’s talking to us. Says they shot ten, twenty people taking over the main room. They have all the delegates down on the floor now. A couple of them appear to be rigging explosives to some of the hall’s supports. Now they’re rounding up the delegates, using plastic to cuff them together into groups of five or six. Oops, they just found our talker. No more news flashes from inside.”

  “Are Tom and Aholo okay?” Kris asked.

  “She said Aholo was. I think Tom is, but she didn’t really know him from Adam, so I’ll just have to bite my nails. Kris, when are we going in and getting them out?”

  “I need the design schematics of that
building.”

  “I’ve got people working on them. Okay, now there’s action at the front door,” Penny said.

  Heads turned in CIC to a screen showing the local news take. A large Islander in a lavalava walked out of the convention center. Kris recognized him, Vea Ikale, principal adviser to the queen, and on this trip, to Aholo. Beside him was a woman in a business suit. Both held their hands up and their pace down. They got halfway to the street, say twenty meters. Then rifle fire from masked gunners at the door cut them down.

  “Want to bet,” Santiago said, “the woman was our talker.”

  A moment later, other hostages began bringing out bodies and laying them on the sidewalk a few feet from the center. A woman put hers down, stood looking at it for a moment, then broke for the street. She almost made it before rapid fire dropped her crumpled at the curb.

  “What’s their message? What do they want?” Kris asked thin air.

  “That is their message,” Jack said. “They aren’t afraid to kill people in cold blood. They have the upper hand. They will tell us what they want us to know in their own damn time.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Santiago sighed, turning back to her board. “Penny, we really need those building specs.”

  “Maybe my contacts will work harder now.”

  “Now that we understand each other, maybe this will be a whole lot easier,” came in a confident voice from the news screen. Heads in the CIC turned back to it. The voice was young and very, very confident.

  “We want a planetary government like everyone else has. A parliament, say with two hundred MPs. One man, one woman, one vote. Nothing special for Islanders. We’re all just one big happy family. Maybe the parliament can even agree to have a queen. A constitutional queen. I don’t mind having the naked tits of some Island cutie on my money. But no veto, no control.

  “Now I heard that the folks here were authorized to vote on just such a government. Course, they are shy a few folks, the ones that fought us, and the ones that mouthed off when they shouldn’t have. Talked on their phone when we told her not to. But the rest, they could vote that government in real fast. They do, and we’ll all be out of here by evening.

  “But I’m told that politicians can take forever to decide on the shape of the table they sit at, so I figure we better encourage them along. If they don’t give us a constitution to vote on by, oh, say six tonight, we let three more walk out, see if they can make it to the street. At midnight, we let four try for the street. Who knows, in the dark, one of them just might make it. Come morning, we turn five loose. It just keeps getting bigger until we run out of delegates or the ones left give us a new constitution.

  “Oh, and ladies and gentlemen, you, too, guys in skirts, those of you that resist doing your duty and giving us what we want, you’ll be the first ones that get to take the walk.”

  Kris shivered. That must have been spoken straight at the hostages. “We got to get them out tonight,” she said.

  “That’s exactly what they’re expecting,” Santiago snapped, shaking her head.

  “Well, tomorrow night’s not going to do a whole lot of people much good. How long before they decide Princess Aholo’s a problem for them?”

  “If she’s been hanging around a Longknife, not long.”

  “I’ve got the building files,” Penny said, cutting that debate off. Santiago opened a separate window on her battle board and a 3-D schematic of the convention center began to rotate before them. “The terrorists apparently drove into the receiving dock on the south end of the building. At least when we sent in reinforcements there during the fight, they got shot up badly, and the survivors reported seeing three trucks. We checked with the owners. They don’t know why their trucks are there,” Penny said.

  “New employees?” Kris asked.

  “Yep. Checking them out, but the local database is light.”

  “We don’t have those kinds of problems here,” Kris said.

  “I’m hearing that enough down here, don’t you start saying it,” Penny grumbled.

  “What about the rifle we captured?” Kris asked Santiago. Rather than rely on the locals, she’d brought it up to the Halsey. The Captain tapped her board.

  “The rifle is a cheap knockoff of the obsolete M-5,” came a quick response. “New Hong Kong has six or seven plants stamping them out to meet the rising demand. Ammo cassettes also appear to be from there. The serial number has been filed down, but we figure to recover it and match it to production in another half hour. Longer if it’s not in our database.”

  “Thanks, intel.”

  “The Marines helped, ma’am.”

  “Figured they would.” Santiago smiled.

  Kris absently tapped the board, opening a window, closing it, opening it . . . “A fancy radar. Nano guards to beat our recon bugs. Weapons better than any seen on this rock . . .”

  “You getting déjà vu all over again?” Santiago asked.

  “If these folks ain’t got the banker of those bastards on Harmony, they got his sister’s banker.” Kris shook her head and made a judgment call. “Nelly, get me Hank Peterwald.”

  That got frowns from Jack and Santiago, but no one opened their mouth to argue with her.

  “What do you want, Longknife?” came a second later.

  “You know about the situation in Brisbane?”

  “Kind of hard to miss it. I heard you hotfooted it out of range real fast.”

  Kris gritted her teeth for a second and breathed out the anger that snide remark brewed in her gut. Hank knew her enough to calculate just how much it would set her off. “Yeah, you know how it is,” she said, as offhanded as she could manage, “the security types get you in a hammer-lock, and next thing you know you’re stuck watching it from the cheap seats.”

  “Yeah, like on Turantic.”

  “You must admit, I got you an interesting view.”

  “From my own yacht. So, Longknife, why you calling me now?”

  “Well, I couldn’t help but notice that the terrorists are very well-equipped compared to what the local constabularies have, and someone had to pay to import all those expensive goodies. I thought maybe you, having talked to folks holding many of the same views as them, might know who’s bankrolling them.”

  “Who says they’re terrorists? They sound like freedom fighters to me.”

  “From where I was sitting, it didn’t look like anyone needed to fight for anything until a few hours ago.”

  “But you Longknifes are always sitting pretty.”

  Beside Kris, Jack and Sandy were shaking their heads. Well, she had to try this route. “So you’re not going to help me.”

  “Don’t see any way I could, even if I should want to,” came back at her.

  “Well, just in case you might know someone who does know someone connected in any way to that crew, you might pass along to them that they have one of my officers in there. Obviously, he has no vote in Hikila’s future. I will take it personally if any harm comes to him. Very, very personally.”

  “And I should be quaking in my shoes, Longknife.”

  “They should be,” Kris said and cut the connection.

  “Do you think they’ll hurt Tom?” Penny asked on net.

  “I don’t know.” Kris sighed, wondering if she’d just helped . . . or sealed Tom’s death warrant. “We’ve got to get those people out. Tonight.”

  Santiago scowled and reached for an overhead microphone. “All hands, this is the Captain speaking. As you probably know by now, there’s a situation on the planet below . . . and we’ve got our Longknife back aboard. She’s about to make a call for volunteers for a heroic and near-suicidal rescue mission for tonight. I disagree. A better-planned and less bloody one can be put together for tomorrow night. As your Captain, I strongly discourage you from responding to a request I can not prevent Princess Kristine from making.” So saying, the Captain handed the mike to Kris.

  Kris juggled the mike for a second, wondering how even a Longknife fo
llowed an intro like that.

  She keyed the mike. “There are five hundred hostages below. The terrorists have already murdered a number of them. At six and midnight, they’ll kill three and four more. I say they get those seven and no more. I need nine volunteers for a drop mission to go with me tonight. If I can’t get nine, then we do it your skipper’s way, plan it all the way, practice it through, do it up right. And let twenty-six more innocents die. Your call. Eight and I don’t go. Nine and we give it a serious look-see.”

  “Well, if you’re really desperate,” came from the open hatch of the CIC where Abby leaned against it, “I guess I could be talked into trying a drop mission. How do you open a parachute?”

  “I’m sure you already know,” Jack said dryly.

  “Count me in,” came from Penny. “You can get some intel weenie down here to hold these people’s hands. I’m going in after Tom.”

  “Penny, have you ever made a drop?”

  “Once. In training. It can’t be too hard if your maid can do it.”

  “She’s only coming along in case I break a nail,” Kris said.

  “Or your neck,” Abby added.

  Santiago looked like she was about to ground them all when Sergeant Li appeared at the CIC hatch. Her “Sergeant?” was less than half question, much more an accusation that stopped just this side of mutiny charges.

  “Begging the Captain’s pardon, but if she doesn’t have any immediate need for several members of the Marine detachment this evening, we respectfully request permission to accompany Princess Longknife on her little trip dirtside. Ma’am.”

  The Captain shook her head. “Longknifes,” she spat. “Well, how many of my Marines are you going to drag along in your wake? You’re not really taking your maid, are you?”

  Kris eyed the putative body servant. “Likely I will. With Jack, that makes four of my crazies. If I could, I’d appreciate borrowing six of your hard cases and heartbreakers.”

  The Sergeant grinned broadly. The Captain’s scowl got deeper. “I ought to clap you all in irons, slap you in my brig, and call for a psych workup on the lot of you, but I’ll delay any effort to apply adult leadership to you juvenile delinquents until I hear your rescue plan.”