Father kicked a rented chair out of his way as he returned from his walk among the flowers. Said walk apparently had done nothing to soothe him. “Pandori just went public! Went public with an announcement that his government has no policy toward the approaching battleships. No policy for or against surrender for the moment, and he will need to meet with his cabinet immediately to establish one. The man is a rank amateur!
“Any freshman backbencher in the liberal party knows you never, ever, let the news cycle know that you don’t know what you’re doing. You always have a policy. The people elected you to have an answer for everything. It may take a few brief meetings to refine it to the present unique circumstances, but you always know what you’re doing.” Father pounded one fist into the other. “He’s as much as admitted he hasn’t the vaguest idea what to do about those warships and their demand for surrender.”
“He can’t surrender,” Honovi said.
“Of course he can’t surrender. Wardhaven never surrenders.” Kris knew that was for party consumption. Around her father, lapel phones were aimed at him. That sound bite would be on the net in moments. Pandori might not know what his policy was, but Father certainly knew his.
Which might not be all that good. If Father wasn’t careful, he’d back the Prime Minister Pro Tem into a corner, and the two would still be squabbling there when the battleships arrived overhead to smash everything Wardhaven had in orbit. Cut huge swaths through our cities. Honovi moved in close to his father, sought as much privacy as circumstances might allow. Around them, lapel cameras were covered.
“If we can’t surrender, Father, how do we fight?”
“That’s the problem, Son. Pandori’s screwed us into a horrible quandary. Can’t defend ourselves. Can’t surrender either. So he wants to crawl into a nice, comfortable cabinet meeting and babble to his buddies about what a mess I made for him when he made it for himself. No, Son. We need a full session of Parliament to tackle this one.”
“An interim government has never called a session, Father.” Honovi chewed his lower lip for a moment, then went on slowly, “If there was a full session, could you call for a vote of confidence in Pandori’s policies?”
Father chuckled. “Now you know why the blokes who bring down a government aren’t supposed to do any governing, Son. You bet if he calls a session, the first thing I’ll put on the table is a vote of no confidence, and it’s one he very much deserves. With the mess he’s made of things, he won’t last five minutes. No, Pandori’s caught in a horrible box. He’s got four days until those damnable ships show up in orbit. If he announces his policy now, and it’s fight, he comes up a cropper with nothing to fight them with. If he raises the white flag now, he has to call the House together to sanction his decision, and he’ll fall so far and so fast he’ll never reach bottom for the splat.”
Father paused, eyebrows coming together thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s not so stupid after all. Maybe he’s trying to hide behind no policy to avoid having to face what a policy will cost him. But damn it, his policy is going to cost Wardhaven. Dear God, is it going to cost Wardhaven.” Still muttering to himself, Father walked off, Honovi right behind him.
“So, what do we do?” Babs Thompson asked the circle of Naval officers.
Kris looked down at Mother’s ridiculous bridesmaid’s dress. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting dressed.” Kris twirled the train over her right arm, straightened her back, and with as much dignity as her attire allowed, quick marched for her room.
It took Kris a whole ten seconds to rip off the daisy dress; that was one outfit she’d never wear again. She didn’t even want it hanging in her closet. Abby could send it off to some secondhand store. Somewhere there had to be a stripper desperate to take it off for money.
But that left the question of what to put on.
Kris stood, nearly naked, and eyed the Navy side of her closet. She was disgraced. She was relieved of her command. She was only just cleared of charges.
And on Hikila, someone had set her or King Ray up for murder just now. The fleet was at Boynton, and the PFs were cold steel and up for sale. Coincidence?
She chose undress whites.
Carefully pulling on the starched pants, the Order of the Wounded Lion in its open case on the shelf caught her eye. She’d earned it for mutiny. Should she wear it? Exactly what she would do today was still forming in the back of Kris’s mind, but no doubt a lawyer at JAG would be stuck reviewing the mutiny section of the UCMJ by sunset.
“Can I help?” Abby asked, surveying with a jaundiced eye the wreckage of the formal gown strewn about the floor. “Add garlic, and that’s one dress that ain’t never gonna bother no girl again.”
“Could you put my ribbons on my whites?” Kris said. “And you have an eye for a fashion statement. See if you can fit the crest of the Order of the Wounded Lion somewhere on the shirt.”
Kris concentrated on dressing. Shoes. Shoes were good, and shoestrings needed tying. What was she going to do? Certainly things were a mess. Fleet gone. What was left was outgunned a jillion to one. Even the mosquito boats, assuming you bought the wildly excessive advertising that a dozen of them could take on one battleship, were outclassed. If they could get power up.
The present situation didn’t present impossible odds. They were ridiculous. Someone had played Pandori for the tyro he was; Wardhaven was in deep trouble. Way too deep.
There was nothing else to do.
“Isn’t that what Longknifes do? Something, when there’s nothing else to do,” she muttered to herself. As usual, the problem was finding that something.
“You say something?” Abby said.
Kris looked down at herself; she was almost dressed. She turned to Abby. The woman had put the Order of the Wounded Lion on her left shirt pocket. Normally, that was where her command badge would have gone. Then again, her command badge was gone, so why not put her mutineer’s badge there today?
Good omen?
Her maid held the shirt while Kris put her arms in its sleeves, then buttoned it on. “Abby, things are going to get crazy down here. Would you look after Harvey and Lotty? Rose and Honovi? Father, and yes, Mother if you can?”
Abby nodded with a tight smile.
Kris turned to glance in the mirror. It showed the usual Kris: too tall, nose too long, a young woman with no curves to speak of. It also showed a jaw set. Mouth a tight line. Eyes going narrow. Was this a Longknife face? Was this what Grampa Ray looked like as he ordered Iteeche fleets exterminated? She paced the distance to the door. Do I have the Longknife answers? she wondered as she opened it.
Outside stood Tom in the dress whites he’d worn for his wedding. Beside him, Penny had somehow traded her fully layered bridal gown and long veil for the much less formal but just as pale undress whites.
They saluted.
“What are your orders, Your Highness?” Tom asked. There were no questions in their eyes. No doubts. Kris searched the two people she’d led through hell and fire. She found only expectation. Damnably confident expectation.
They expected her to reach into some Longknife magic hat and come up with the right answer once again. The right orders that would lead them through fire and hell . . . again . . . and safe out . . . again.
Kris swallowed the lump rising in her throat and returned their salute. “Princess Kristine sends her compliments to the Commodore and asks him at his convenience to hold a council of his boat commanders.”
Tom went from saluting Kris with one hand to talking to his other. But only for a moment. “The Commodore sends his compliments and says he will convene a council of his junior commanders in the wardroom of the Cushing at fifteen hundred hours.”
Kris glanced at her watch. “An hour and a half. That ought to be enough time to get up the beanstalk, onto a military base, and aboard a ship I’m not supposed to go near.”
“Doesn’t sound impossible for a Longknife,” Jack said, ambling down the hall, hands in his pants pockets. “I figured
you might find a Secret Service agent useful, even if he is on terminal leave, so I hung around after the wedding busted up. Penny, I must say, you’ve set a new standard for wedding receptions.”
“I suspect it will be talked about for years. Should make Kris’s mom happy.”
“So, you three need a ride to the elevator terminal? Hope you don’t mind, all I got is a rented beater.” Jack grinned.
The beanstalk station was a madhouse, but all the traffic was headed down and out. Kris and her three brave souls had the in and up side almost to themselves. Tommy and Penny had no trouble going through the turnstile using their ID cards for both authorization and payment.
Kris pulled out her Nuu Enterprises stockholder ID.
“It ain’t gonna work,” the elderly attendant told Kris. “I hear they dropped the charges against you, but when I checked the ‘no admit’ printout this morning, your name was still on it.”
“Hi, Mary,” Kris said to the familiar face who’d checked her through the gate as often as not for many of the last ten years. “Joey out of trouble now that I’m back from Hikila?”
“The new management didn’t wait for you to come back. They gave him a week suspension without pay the day after he let you through. I told him to talk to the union, but he said he needed a vacation. He spent the whole week up on the North Coast. Sent us pictures every day. Every day with a different pretty girl wearing practically nothing. I swear he was renting them.”
“He does have a nice smile,” Kris noted.
“And now you need to get up the beanstalk. I hear we got some noisy company coming.”
Kris thought for a second, then decided to lie. “Oh? I hadn’t heard.”
“And my husband’s a great lover. Tell you what I’m gonna do. Why don’t you cuddle up close to that nice young man behind you and let him pay his way through, and if you happen to slip through at the same time ...” She shrugged.
“The security cameras will spot it.”
“Hell, young lady, maybe I could use a vacation up on the North Coast. Has to be some nearly naked boys I can rent. And it might be safer than being around here. Certainly will be if you don’t get up there and do whatever it is you’re up to.”
Jack got up close behind Kris. He ran his ID through the charge slip. There were advantages to being taller than the average . . . and not much more than a stick figure. Kris slipped through in step with her agent. They made it to the ferry just as it was locking down.
Getting aboard the Naval station turned out to be even less of a problem. Pandori had sent most of the Marines to Boynton. Newly hired guards at the gate were more concerned with listening to the news and talking about when they’d get off than checking IDs. Kris waved her ID at the scanner. It didn’t go beep, but she kept on walking.
They reached the Cushing fifteen minutes before the Commodore’s staff meeting. Tom offered Kris an update on the 109.
“She’s not in very good shape,” Tom said as they boarded. “The motor hasn’t been run for weeks. That’s not good for small matter-antimatter gear. They were ordered to rip out the lasers, but with the fleet gone, they kept getting orders to provide work parties on the base. Truth is, Tran was glad to farm the crew out to details. It kept them from tearing up the boat. I’m not sure, but I think it’s been that way with all the other skippers. Hoping that if they weren’t sold before the election, your da would win, and we’d be back in business.”
In the dim light and borrowed station air, the cold silence of the boat was like a tomb. Kris had come aboard hoping for something to cheer her up, give her hope that there was a way out of this mess that older heads had gotten them into. The feel of her boat, a dead carcass on the beach, did nothing to help.
It was better to face the Commodore.
Kris crossed the brow onto the Cushing’s quarterdeck with Tom at her side. The MC1 system announced, “PF-109 arriving,” which brought a smile to her face. “Princess Kristine arriving,” was a sharp reminder that Tom was still officially PF-109, not her.
She saluted the flag painted on the bulkhead, then saluted the JG standing Junior Officer of the Deck, who returned her salute. Tom and Penny did the same. Jack stood by like a good civilian, looking a bit nonplussed at the solemn Navy ritual.
“The Commodore is waiting for you in the wardroom,” the JOOD said and turned to lead them aft. He cast Jack a questioning look over his shoulder as the Secret Service agent, alumni-in-waiting, made to follow.
“I’m with her.”
“Humor us,” Kris said. “Things are a bit strange.”
“And then some,” the JG agreed. Two armed Marines stood guard outside the wardroom. Inside, two more Marines took station beside the door. Kris hadn’t seen this kind of security since she bucked Captain Thorpe on the Typhoon.
The Commodore was seated at the head of the long dining table, a white linen cloth covering it. Six PF skippers sat down the side of the table at his right hand. There was a single seat open on the left across from the door. And another at the foot. Kris nodded Tom toward the 109’s seat and took her place at the foot of the table.
As supplicant? Rebel?
In a moment, she would open her mouth, speak the Word, and forever be branded by what she said. She could do nothing. But Longknifes had never been good at that. Kris weighed her options and decided now was no time to buck tradition.
Jack took over a corner where he could observe the entire room. He and the Marine sergeant exchanged glares, decided both were alpha, and went back to doing whatever it is that security people do when everything is locked down securely. Penny took a chair away from the table but in easy reach at Kris’s left.
“I’m glad to see that we have an intelligence officer among us,” the Commodore said, starting the meeting with no preamble. “Though I understand congratulations are more in order than requests for data downloads. So you were successful in tying the knot, Lieutenant Lien, before things got interesting.”
“I was, sir,” Tom said, half standing in place. “May I introduce my wife, Lieutenant Lien, though her name badge is a tad out of date.”
Penny blushed in that lovely way of brides. There was a general round of “Hear! Hear!”
Kris waited for silence, then filled it. “Do we know any more about the intruders?”
“No, sad to say,” the Commodore growled. “I got more from pumping my returning skippers than my own sources. The command net has gone decidedly unhelpful. It seems a colonel from the general staff made a personal visit to the military facilities on the space station. His verbal orders were to cease any actions that might give offense to the incoming ships. Close down sensor scans, stand down defensive systems, make nice or better yet say nothing in message traffic, what have you.” The Commodore gave a diffident wave of his hand and scowled.
“I only know this because I sent my XO to the fleet command center to find out why the net was suddenly so silent. No one felt a need to hand carry any orders to an old scow like the Cushing. Anyway, we seem to be rolling over and playing dead. But there’s nothing official to that effect.”
Kris looked around the table at the other skippers, her peers, the closest she’d come in her adult life to friends. How would they take to what she was about to do? Slowly, she stood.
“Our planet is under deadly threat. We here command the only force capable of standing between those battleships and our families. Our loved ones. While the government talks, searches for a policy, we have been asked to stand down. Do nothing.” Kris shook her head slowly.
“We are warriors. We know that if we are called to battle in four days, we need every second to prepare for that fight.” There were nods around the table. Not all. Not all were from Wardhaven. Would they recognize this was their fight? Kris took in a deep breath, held it for a second, and took the plunge.
“I am Princess Kristine Anne Longknife. By right of blood, by right of name, by right of title, I am assuming command of this squadron, effective this date. Do any o
f you contest my claim and right?”
For a long moment, the skippers just stared at her. Here and there an eyebrow raised. If anyone, it was Phil and Chandra who seemed the closest to frowning at her coup de main. The Commodore’s face was standard Navy issue unreadable.
And the door opened. Commander Santiago pushed past the Marine guards. “Have I missed anything important?” she said as she pulled up a chair and sat down at the Commodore’s elbow.
“Only the princess here announcing she’s taking command of my squadron,” the Commodore half grumbled.
“Oh, only that. Good, then I’m not too late,” Santiago said, then turned to Kris. “So, Princess Longknife, how are we going to fight those bastards?”
Kris blinked. She’d expected opposition. Argument. Compromise. Anything but this. Anything but having to come up with an answer right now.
“With everything we’ve got,” Kris said. “And everything we can lay our hands on in the next three days.”
“Not a bad start,” the destroyer skipper agreed.
“Are you going along with her?” Phil asked, incredulity dripping from his voice to puddle on the deck plates.
Santiago eyed him. “Phil, Phillip Taussig. You’re Admiral Taussig’s boy, right?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Listen, Lieutenant, we’ve got a first-class mess here. Don’t you agree?” Phil nodded. “The politicians, God bless ’em, got faked out of their socks and are presently hunting for a new pair. When they finally decide what to do, odds are, it will be to drop this hot potato into our delicate fingers.
“As I see it, we can follow someone’s idea of orders and do nothing, or we can use the legal fiction of Princess Longknife here, and do something. Three days hence, what we do with the next hours just might save our lives. Me, given an option of hiding behind some unwritten orders left by some gutless wonder from the general staff or hiding behind Princess Longknife’s legal coattails ...” The Commander shrugged.
Kris Longknife: Defiant: Defiant Page 16
