Kris started to say, “What do I say?” but she swallowed that. Luna and van Horn were looking at her with the expectation that she knew what she’d say. That somewhere in her Longknife genes was the script for days like today.
Good Lord, did they have that wrong.
“Okay, let me know when you want me,” Kris said and turned away. She wanted to find a quiet corner to scribble some notes.
A woman, standing stiff for her ID photo, spotted Kris and broke into a wide smile. Kris smiled back.
A tall, gangly kid, hardly more than a boy, looked up from where he was pinning his Coast Guard Auxiliary badge onto his Navy shipsuit. “We gonna beat those jokers?” he asked, though his words were more a prayer.
“You bet,” Kris said. A half-dozen boys and old men around him laughed with him, at his brashness, at his hope. Who knew? They were just happy to hear they’d win, and from the horse’s mouth, no less.
Kris found no quiet corner; instead she ended up circulating among the crews: grizzled merchants, middle-aged yacht owners with their young daughters and sons, electronic specialists dragged over, screwdrivers still in hand, to be registered, volunteers all. There were Navy reservists looking for the odd person to fill up a hole in their crew, a slot they’d just thought of last night and might be useful. There were shipyard hands, too, not sure what they’d be asked to do, but ready to sail with the fleet if they were needed.
It was an odd lot, for an odder mission. If courage and enthusiasm, willingness and guts decided battles, the hostiles were licked. Unfortunately, 18-inch lasers decided battles.
Kris had none of them.
Kris found herself among some old chiefs, filling out their tugboat crews from experienced civilian salvage teams and eager Coast Guard volunteers. “Last night, they was showing us the balls to the wall—if you’ll pardon me, ma’am—kind of attack that you fast patrol boats plan to make.” “I suspect you’ll be coming at them from the moon, if you’re smart,” another Chief said, smoking her pipe. “Wardhaven’s gunna be kind of big underneath ya’.” “But we’ll catch ya.” “We’ll be waiting for ya, with power, whatever ya need, Your Highness.”
“You’d be surprised what some of us salvage tugs carry.” The last one grinned. “You do what needs doing, and we’ll catch you and set you down soft as down on a duck.”
“Now I think they’re looking for you, and I think old fuss and feathers is expecting us to form ranks for parade.”
He was right; the processing seemed to be done, though two or three last stragglers were being rushed down the line. And a few of the civilian clerks were signing themselves in, if Kris wasn’t mistaken.
The PFs were forming ranks in front by boats. Kris noticed that the officers that had been missing last night were at their stations up front. Yes, there was Tom. And Penny, too.
Sandy’s XO paraded most of the Halsey’s crew, those not at duty stations. The Commodore’s gray-headed XO was doing her best to get her mix of too old or too green crew out of the Cushing and into their designated ranks beside the line destroyer.
The merchant skippers did a surprisingly good job of forming right along with the reservists they carried. Kris suppressed a smile at the eagerness of old farts who’d prided themselves on sloppy now trying to compete for Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.
The ragtag and bobtail contingent of armed and unarmed yachts formed to the rear of the PFs. As they would in battle, each picked a PF, grouped behind it, and tried to look like they knew what a rank and file was. The old chiefs of the tugboat flotilla marched dourly up to fill in the back row. They asked no pride of place; they were used to picking up the leavings.
Kris loved them all.
A couple of tables had been pushed together up front. Sandy was standing on them, waving at Kris to get forward. Van Horn had helped the Commodore to climb from a chair to the tables.
Kris started to double-time for her place. “Kris, you have a call coming in from your brother,” Nelly announced. “It’s in the standard family code.”
“I’ll take it,” Kris said, giving Sandy an acknowledging wave but slowing down. “Hi, Bro. What’s happening?”
“Sis, I’m delivering what you want, but it’s just the minimum. The new guy is giving out a press release. No public statement for him or our man.”
“He’s not going for a photo op!” For a politician to give up face time, airtime. That was unheard of!
“The press release will call on the incoming things to cease their messages and declare where they are from in the next hour or we will consider ourselves in a state of war with them and those who sent them. The message will be out there. It’s just that Pandori can’t make himself say the words. The fellow is so much a product of the long peace that he just can’t . . .”
Kris knew that any search system that could break their code now knew what everyone would know in a matter of minutes. It was time for plain talk.
“Grampa Al figured there was Peterwald money behind the votes that got Pandori the PM’s job.”
“Pandori’s not a Peterwald man,” Honovi shot back. “And you know, Sis, if the Society for Humanity was still up, if there was still peace in human space, Pandori could have been a great man.”
“Yes, Brother, but that Society is dead, and ugly things are roving human space, and I’m gonna be facing six of them in a couple of hours, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t feel all that sorry for Pandori and his daughter.”
“Yeah, I can see your point. Anyway, Sis, you’re legal. You can go break things, and it ain’t against the law. Happy?”
“Jubilant. Now Bro, if you’re anywhere around your old haunts, I strongly suggest you get long gone. If this guy is anything like the last Peterwald nut I dealt with, he wants you and Father dead in the worst way. Head for the hills. Keep your head down until you have a good idea of what I’ve broken.”
“Understand you, Sis. I’ll pick up Rose and Mother and, how do you say it, beat feet out of town.”
“Good-bye, Brother, I got to talk to a couple of thousand of my closest friends,” Kris said and cut the line. She was at the podium. She waved off help getting up. Among the older, wiser heads, she asked softly, “You want to say a word?”
“You played the princess card, Kris,” Sandy said. The other two senior naval officers nodded. Painfully aware of the Lieutenant strips on her shoulder boards, the Commanders, Captain tabs on their shipsuits, Kris faced her command.
They looked back at her. Expectant. Ready.
Kris stood, legs apart, hands on hips, and looked back at them. “Now it’s our turn,” she began.
“Eighty years ago, your great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers, fought with my Great-grandfathers Ray and Trouble to beat back the Iteeches and save humanity from extinction.”
Beside her, the Commodore cleared his throat. “Okay.” Kris smiled. “Some of you old farts were there, with my grampas, doing the fighting.” That brought a soft chuckle among the ranks.
“Those of you who faced the Iteeche know what it’s like to fight outnumbered, outgunned . . . and win.”
“Yeah,” “You bet,” “We did,” came back in smatterings.
“The Iteeche would have made the human race an extinct race. You didn’t let that happen.”
“No,” came back solid, sure.
“You fought, and you won, and we’ve built the world we’ve enjoyed for the last eighty years. A world of peace. A world of prosperity. A world those battleships coming at us plan to end. Are we going to let them?”
“No,” rolled back at Kris.
“So now it’s our turn. The bastards out there have got us outmaneuvered. They’ve got us outgunned. But they haven’t got us outsmarted. They haven’t got half as many surprises up their sleeves as we’ve got up ours.”
Again there was a murmur of approval in the ranks.
“Dirtside, my brother thinks I’m crazy. He thinks I’m out of my mind to be charging into a fight when I could be down there where h
e is. Who’s the crazy one in the family, me or him?”
“Him,” roared back at her.
“You’ve probably got smart brothers like mine. Stay home. Stay safe. As I see it, when those battleships start shooting, he has to sit there and take it. Me, I get to shoot back.”
“Yes.”
“I get to blow them out of space.” Just one chance. Hold it; what did the tugboat skipper say?
“Yes,” didn’t last nearly long enough for Kris to finish the thought nibbling at her. She concentrated on the speech; the battle would have to wait for a second.
“Now it’s my turn to put a stop to them shooting at my mom, my dad, my brother, my loved ones.” Kris wished she could name a few specific names, but “Yes” was roaring back at her.
“The boats ready?”
“Yes,” was the loudest yet.
“Let’s go bust some battleship butt.”
When the cheering died down, Captain van Horn stepped forward. “Chiefs, dismiss your crews to their ships.”
Maybe the Chiefs did. In the roar that followed, Kris sure didn’t hear any orders bellowed. But crews ran or trotted or rushed for their boats, a stream of free humanity rushing to meet the enemy, their fate, victory. Whatever came.
Kris turned to van Horn. “I got another crazy idea.”
“This better be an easy one as well as good.”
“My PFs are a one-shot weapon. They can’t reload their pulse lasers. Right?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to rendezvous with tugs to help us slow down, miss Wardhaven, avoid burning up in the atmosphere. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Could those tugs recharge our pulse lasers, pass a refill of antimatter and reaction mass, recock us for another go at any battlewagon still fighting?”
“We’d have to send you in early,” Sandy said.
“But we’d get two bites out of the battlewagons.”
“At least any that survived the first run,” van Horn said, looking around. “XO?”
“Sir.”
“Get over to the salvage tugs with reactors. See what kind of power cables they have. Make sure they got fittings to match with the PFs. Tell them they’re not only going to help them make orbit, they’re going to refuel and rearm them.”
“I’ll do that, sir. And with your permission, I’ll assign myself with that division. Make sure everything goes smoothly.” Somehow Kris doubted matching up at two, three g’s would be anywhere close to smooth.
Roy from the yard passed Kris. “Nice speech. Almost makes me want to sign on.”
“You got a tugboat with a full reactor?”
“Three deep space salvage tugs in the yard. You don’t need them for the stuff you’re doing in orbit here.”
Kris explained that she did. “Oh,” was his reply. “You know that thing I said about almost wanting to sign on?”
“Ready to forget the almost?”
He took a deep breath. “Guess so. I knew that some of my yard folks were sailing on some of these tubs, work not quite finished. Oh hell, why not take out my own fleet of tugs? You want me to catch up with you, slow you down, pass lines?”
“Antimatter containment pods, reaction mass fuel lines, that kind of stuff.”
“Where do I sign up?”
Van Horn looked at his check-in tables; there were still a few folks sitting at them. “Better hurry if you want one of these nifty uniforms, plus health benefits and life insurance.”
14
Contact: -8 hours 45 minutes
The Duty Lieutenant eyed the feed. Wardhaven was finally sending something to the Revenge.
“Are you getting this?” Intel asked needlessly.
“I’m watching,” the Duty Lieutenant said, bringing the thousandth cup of coffee he’d drunk this watch up to his lips. Cold, weak, bad. The coffee. And the response.
“If the unidentified warships in our system do not identify themselves within the hour,” said the woman on-screen.
A woman being used for such an announcement. The Lieutenant shook his head. Longknifes.
“We will commence the defensive actions against them as is our right under self-defense. These ships are warned that if they take any hostile action against our forces, Wardhaven will respond against them, and those who sent them, with the full force available to us. The approaching ships are warned that they should prepare to be boarded by customs inspectors as well as animal and plant quarantine and drug enforcement inspectors.”
The Lieutenant almost choked on his coffee. “Sorry,” he said to the technician who got splattered by the spray. He wiped at the worst droplets.
“It’s okay, sir,” the technician said. “Sir. Are they serious? About boarding us?”
“They’re bluffing,” said the tech next to him.
“They’re joking,” said the Lieutenant.
“Will you wake the Admiral now?” the intel chief demanded.
“To answer that!”
“Well, it is the first communication we’ve had from Wardhaven. And it is an ultimatum.”
“Written by a stand-up comic or someone who has lost all touch with reality,” the Lieutenant said, finishing his coffee. “No, I think the Admiral can sleep through this. I will wake him fifteen minutes before the ultimatum expires, and he can compose a response while he’s shaving.”
Intel sputtered something as he clicked off, but the Lieutenant ignored him. Nothing had changed. Wardhaven was still there, waiting to be plucked. Cracking a few bad jokes, but if that was the extent of their defense . . . plant inspectors . . . there was no need to disturb the Admiral’s sleep.
A mess mate brought a new thermos of coffee. The Lieutenant sampled it. Not bad. Not good, but at least not bad. “Tell the chief of the Admiral’s mess that he better have a very good cup of coffee waiting in forty-five minutes when I wake the Admiral.”
“He’ll want something good to go with that,” a tech said.
“Drug inspectors. We’ll show them some drugs to inspect,” said another. There were rumors about how the Peterwalds made their money. Rumors spread by the Longknifes, no doubt.
“Mind your boards. Let me know the second anything changes,” the Lieutenant warned. A woman, speaking for Wardhaven, throwing defiances like a kitten surrounded by hungry dogs. Maybe they would be taking a surrender from her before noon today. But deep in the pit of the Lieutenant’s gut, there was a suspicion, a suspicion supported by nothing on the boards, that there was more behind those words.
“Mind your boards,” he repeated.
Contact: -8 hours 30 minutes
Kris ducked into her stateroom for a second to change into a shipsuit. Whites might look good for a talk with the troops, but she didn’t need the Order of the Wounded Lion’s crest gouging her at three g’s. At three g’s lots of things went from a nuisance to a major problem.
Kris glanced in the mirror one last time. That was still her. The fancy uniform was gone, she wore just what she needed for the job she’d do today. Just her, her crews and boats, and some mighty nasty battlewagons that figured they had everything the way they wanted it. “Well, we got some free women, free men, willing to put it on the line to tell you no,” she told herself. “Let’s go keep Wardhaven the way we want it.”
The Halsey was busy, crew going about the business of getting under way. Sandy was still in CIC as Kris passed.
“Anything new and surprising?” Kris asked.
“Nope. The stations sensor array is back on-line, but the intel feed is the same, just to three more decimal places.”
“Take care, Santiago. This time we’ll make sure the history books get it right.”
“Take care yourself, Longknife, and the history books are written by historians. They’ll never get it right until they stick their noses outside their safe libraries and come out here where it’s really happening.”
“Must be a historian somewhere in the mix. We’ve got everything from pirates to kids.”
&nbs
p; “Excuse me,” a gentle voice said. “Am I missing something?”
“Kris, may I introduce my pet newsie. Winston Spencer, this is Princess Kristine. She commands today.”
“Your Highness.” He bowed from the neck. “Lieutenant,” he frowned, then glanced at Sandy. “Commander? And isn’t the captain of the Naval Base taking out some armed container ships? Yet you say Princess Kristine commands. Is there a story here?”
“Live through today”—Sandy smiled enigmatically—“and you may have your story. If you have the smarts to figure it out.”
“Hmm,” he said, as Kris left Sandy and her Boswell.
Kris found Tom with his legs sticking out from under one of the 109’s bridge consoles, Fintch under it with him.
Penny muttered, “No. Still no. Yes! No. No. No. Got it! Hold it there!” Kris said not a word while Tom and Fintch finished what they were doing to something.
Tom rolled out from under the console, spotted Kris, and grinned. “Something didn’t stay fixed from yesterday’s work with Beni, or while fixing what he fixed, he elbowed something.”
“Or someone elbowed something,” Penny added.
“Anyway, it’s fixed, and we’re good to go,” Fintch said, grinning, then frowned and looked around. “Should one of us call attention on deck or something?”
“I think we better belay all that until after we’ve got a couple of battleship hides to nail on the O club wall down on Wardhaven,” Kris said.
“Yeah. If the gal is using Navy words like belay”—Tom grinned—“she’s got enough salt in her veins without us doing all that time-wasting attention stuff. We’ve either learned all our lessons by now, or it’s too late.”
“Is the old boat ready?”
“As ready as she’ll ever be.” Tom saluted.
“Or will be as soon as you find a place for me,” a new voice said. Kris turned to face a short, middle-aged man holding a large portable computer. Behind him, three yard workers lugged, in order, a high-g station, a workstation, and a toolbox.
Kris Longknife: Defiant: Defiant Page 28
