Kris Longknife: Intrepid

by SHEPHERD, MIKE

  The silence gave way to murmurs as heads turned to the people next to them. No one among them moved to stand, to take the lead. Had Kris moved before they were ready, or had the different views failed so far to coalesce?

  Pandemonium had no planetary government. Kris had been surprised to hear from Andy Fronour on the trip out just how minimal the town governance was, a council, no mayor. He’d been proud of just how little government they got along with.

  Kris hoped she wasn’t going to have to teach a whole lot of reluctant souls How to Decide Things 101.

  “I hear there’s going to be a fight tomorrow up the road a ways,” Bobby Joe Fronour said. “What are we doing all the way back here?”

  “There will be a battle up the road at what I’ve come to call the dugout,” Kris said, “but we aren’t going to be there.”

  “Don’t it take two to have a battle?” The man who stood up held his rifle at the ready, as if he might find an enemy sitting beside him. He was one of the youngest in the barn, hair still flaming red.

  Kris gave the question a nod. “If you want to go down in the history books as a great conqueror, it does help if some opposition shows up to fight and get their butts kicked.”

  A momentary pause got the laughter Kris hoped for. “Us showing up serves no one’s benefit except Colonel Cortez’s. His launching a smashing assault on a host of barnyard animals should make him the laughingstock of his entire command, as well as human space once the story gets out, don’t you think?”

  That got a good laugh from the gathered elders, but the redhead just scowled. “You can’t win a battle unless you fight one,” he said when the laughter died down.

  “No, and depending on how fast Cortez recovers from our little joke, he should be in that battle late tomorrow or early the next day,” Kris said.

  Now she had everyone’s attention.

  “Where we gonna kill those bastards?” Red demanded.

  Kris did not like the question. It presumed a lot. That they would be able to kill said bastards, and that they would want to kill the same.

  Red seemed to have no doubt about either.

  Kris could not say the same.

  Kris commanded a lot of rifles. Say half again more than Cortez. Kris suspected that the colonel had some doubts about the white coats that made up so much of his ranks. No question Kris had doubts about the civilians that made up most of hers.

  Like most civilians, Kris finished college “knowing” the military’s whole idea of trained automatons was to turn their troops into zombies who did exactly what they were told.

  It hadn’t taken her long to unlearn that.

  Soldiers and Marines had to be able to do their jobs without thought for one simple reason. They had to load and aim and fire without thought when their brains were too numb or shocked or horrified by what they saw. They had to keep doing it until by doing it, they’d brought themselves out of the hell that made thinking impossible and trained action their only hope.

  These civilians had rifles. They had their homes to defend. They had little or no training. They’d probably be good for their first shot. Maybe their second. Possibly a third.

  But sooner or later, they’d turn. They’d want to run. In the noise and blood and screams, they’d forget why they came, forget everything but their desire to be somewhere else.

  Maybe not all. Maybe a few would find what it took. How many? Victory would go to whichever side held on for a second longer than the other.

  Kris eyed the redhead, so sure he knew what tomorrow would bring. So ignorant of it. And she took a deep breath.

  “We’ll fight Cortez among the rice paddies and hills of the Tzu farm,” she said.

  “So that’s where we massacre them,” Red said.

  Kris chose not to hear that comment. “I’ll have the Marines take down most of the light infantry with sleepy darts. The gopher rifles the local volunteers carry should knock the heavy infantry silly.”

  “But our guns won’t get past their armor.” Red jumped in right where Kris expected. She ignored him for a moment to study the reaction around the barn. Red had plenty of folks who agreed with him. About half. The other half looked more puzzled than on Kris’s side.

  “From painful personal experience,” Kris said with a reinforcing wince, “I can tell you that bullets, even those that don’t get through armor, can leave you black-and-blue underneath and quite disoriented. That is what I want. The light infantry snoring for a couple of hours and the heavy infantry very much aware that they’ve been hit, hit hard, and having a tough time finding something to shoot at.

  “Five minutes of that, and Colonel Cortez should be ready to listen to an offer for his surrender.”

  “But I want them dead. All of them!” Red shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t want them SOBs coming back here.”

  “Panda’s ours. Why not kill ’em for trying to steal it?”

  Kris said nothing for a long minute while the war party blew itself out. She found Bobby Joe Fronour and Gramma Polska in the crowd. They both looked puzzled, but not ready to join Red in his shout for blood. Finally, old Bobby Joe stood up, and the room fell quickly into silence.

  “When we were fighting the Iteeche, there weren’t a lot of prisoner taking. Not by us. Not by them. So I’m kind of curious about this idea you got, Miss Longknife. It seemed like your old man was only happy with a dead Iteeche.”

  Kris nodded. “Maybe in that war there wasn’t much room for anything but a lot of dead bodies. God knows, we all came close to being nothing but dead.” Even some of the hotheads nodded along with Kris on that.

  Red just scowled.

  “Since long before we left old Earth, smart generals knew the easiest way to get an enemy off your land was to threaten their line of retreat. Threaten to make it impossible for them to go home. So a really smart general, when he fought, was careful to leave a hole somewhere that the enemy could run away through. Frequently it was all it took to get them running.”

  “So that’s it.” Red hardly looked able to get his words out past his rage. “They’ve ripped up our lands, wrecked our property. Killed God only knows how many of us. You’re just going to let them walk away?”

  Kris curtly shook her head. “Of course not. My intention is to have Colonel Cortez surrender to us. To have his men lay down their arms and become our prisoners. That is what the laws of war require of me.”

  “Of you?” This was Bobby Joe’s question.

  “I am a serving officer of the Wardhaven Navy. Despite being rented mercenaries, these men are in the uniform of their respective planets. To date, in this situation, they have followed the laws of war. As such, they deserve the honors of war and prisoner of war status from me. I would think you would want to offer them the same.”

  “I want them dead,” Red said.

  “How high a price are you willing to pay for that butcher bill?” Kris asked softly.

  “We kill ’em. That’s the end of them,” Red snorted.

  “Are you sure?” Kris asked.

  “What do you mean? Dead is dead.” But Red wasn’t sounding so sure anymore.

  “What do you know that we don’t?” Bobby Joe asked.

  “Actually, it’s what we both don’t know,” Kris replied. “What do you know about the latest alliances among the city-states of New Jerusalem?”

  “I didn’t even know they had city-states,” said Gramma Polska. “What kind of alliances do they have?”

  “Ever-shifting ones,” Kris put in quickly. “I’m not sure Lieutenant Pasley is all that up to date on who’s switched to whom and who’s trying to gain power or afraid of losing it. That alone would be a full-time job.”

  Penny rolled her eyes to heaven. Around the barn a lot more people frowned at each other. Faced with the idea that even a Longknife might not know everything, it began to dawn on them that they might not know it all either.

  And what they didn’t know just might hurt them
.

  “But here’s the deal, folks. Let’s say that a story comes back to Jerusalem, that a bunch of Godless barbarian hicks on this out-of-the-way planet just slaughtered most of a battalion of the Lord’s Ever Victorious Host,” Kris started.

  To be interrupted by, “We’re God-fearing Christians, here.”

  “Ah,” Kris said, raising a finger to make the point. “But are you the right kind of believer? Or is your kind of Christian just as much an infidel as the prays-five-times-a-day Turk?” Murmurs slipped around the barn as the situation on Jerusalem was hashed over, and everyone came to terms with a whole different take on reality.

  “What do you think might happen to us if we used the blood and bones of these invaders to manure our crops?” Bobby Joe asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” Kris said. “Only a fool tells you she knows exactly what anyone is going to do. And a planet with a billion people?” Kris threw up her arms. “After all, look what someone told Cortez about how easy it would be to take down Panda. ‘They’re only farmers.’ ”

  The barn got real quiet.

  Kris spoke her next words softly. Folks leaned forward to better hear her. “If you look at old Earth’s bloodiest periods, there are several patterns that repeat. One is missionaries come. Missionaries get killed. Army comes. Houses and crops get burned. Natives get killed. And the flag comes last. Suddenly a whole lot of local folks find themselves with an empress or kaiser or president they never voted for.

  “Oh, and your women. I got some of them toting guns along with the rest of your troops. That’s a no-no. Can’t work outside the home, and the same no-no with their clothes. A dress. A long dress, covering them from neck to toe. Oh, and a scarf or something on the head. Always.”

  The barn didn’t stay quiet after that. Kris turned back to her team to let the farmers talk it out among themselves.

  “How much of that did you make up?” Jack asked from behind a hand over his mouth.

  “None, I think,” Kris said. “In high school I did a paper on New Jerusalem.” Kris shivered. “I couldn’t believe anyone would choose to live like that. I felt like I had to write it out to try to understand it.”

  “You understand it?” Gunny asked.

  “Nope,” Kris said.

  The barn slowly settled down to a dull roar. It stayed that way until Bobby Joe Fronour stood. He got silence.

  “Folks, forty years ago, I started this here planet. I didn’t much like folks telling me what to do, and I’ve lived to see it fill up with folks like me. I set it up figuring on certain things,” he said, looking around at the people gathered in the barn, and clearly proud of what he saw.

  “I figured if anything I couldn’t handle came along, we together could handle it. Well, it looks like something bigger than that has come our way, and I want you to know that I’m mighty glad to have the help of this young Longknife whelp.”

  Kris had been called many things. This was a first time for whelp. Kris wasn’t all that sure it was meant to be endearing. Quite a few listeners laughed.

  Bobby Joe turned to Kris. “Mind you, I’m none too sure you’ll mosey on your way when you’re done here or that you and I will see eye to eye about when that golden moment may be.”

  Kris did her best at a dramatic sigh. “So I’ll be adding another to the list of planets where I’ve been thanked but told not to come back.”

  “Yes,” he said, deadly serious. “I imagine that’s a hard way to live. But you’re the one doing it, not me.”

  For a moment, Kris tasted the loneliness of what her life would be like for someone so rooted to the fields and dirt.

  For a moment, Kris felt the emptiness of her life.

  She shook her head, willed away the emotions. People depended on her. That was enough.

  “Okay, young Longknife, tell us what you would have us do.” And with those words, the old farmer sat back down.

  The barn held its collective breath.

  Kris took a moment to let all that she’d heard and felt soak through her . . . and out of her. Done, she squared her shoulders, and said, “I want all of you to accept the surrender of anyone willing to throw down his rifle and put his hands up. I want you to respect any white flag, handkerchief, call of camaradine, quarter, or ‘for God’s sake, I quit.’ ”

  Red was back on his feet. “And what do we do with ’em. Wrap them up with a pretty bow?”

  “No.” Kris snapped. “Hell no,” she added for emphasis, ’cause this crowd needed all the emphasis she could muster.

  “Then what do we do?” Bobby Joe asked, climbing to his feet.

  Red already had his mouth open to cross more words with Kris. Only old man Fronour could have gotten him to shut his yap, but he shut it and sat back down.

  “They owe us, young lady. They owe us,” Bobby Joe repeated as he took his seat again.

  Kris wanted to fire something back. Quick. Effective. She found she didn’t have any words even close to the tip of her tongue. Thoroughly unusual, that.

  “Those guys present a real problem,” came from behind Kris in Gunny’s deep voice. “If I and my crew find ourselves in a bad place, even if we surrender, our ties to Wardhaven can’t be broken. Anyone who accepts our surrender knows that and knows they have Wardhaven to deal with about us.

  “But these folks, they still wear the uniform of someone, but they’ve clearly been rented out to someone else. Gives an old enlisted swine like myself a painful headache.”

  Kris turned back to face the old Marine. He gave her a twinkling wink. “Seems like something new that an officer might enjoy thinking through.”

  “Gee thanks, Gunny,” she whispered. But he’d bought her time to think and defined some limits. Kris turned back to the farmers feeling almost confident that she did have a good idea.

  “One of the things I keep hearing is that start-ups need labor. Lots of people to do the work. Panda any exception?”

  “Nope,” Bobby Joe said, to be echoed through the barn.

  “Now, it seems to me that anyone that’s been rented out to carry a gun doesn’t owe a lot to those who did it to him.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Gunny growled. “Not after seeing a few of my buddies get wounded, killed.”

  “So I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t feel free to offer these fine strapping men a job. Any of them that sign on with you, you can take. Any that want to go home, do.”

  “With their guns!” Red was back on his feet.

  “With the clothes on his or her back,” Kris interjected. She had it going her way. She didn’t want to lose them now. “Their military equipment is yours. You can sell it if you want. If I was in your shoes, I’d use it to equip a National Guard.”

  The babble in the room sounded like it might be nearing an agreement.

  “What about the officers? The apes that have been giving orders,” Red shouted, as soon as the background roar let him. “We going to let them get off with just some hard work?”

  Kris had hoped that this question might get overlooked in the interest of getting a few things settled. She could really get to hate Red.

  “No,” Kris said, already reading which way the room was blowing. Blast it, if she wanted to live by the polls like her father, she would have run for office. But there were reasons why her father did his best to follow the will of the people. They had elected him, and, as often as not, they were right.

  Kris let her political instincts loose. “These officers have committed crimes against humanity, all humanity, by their raising arms against a peaceful people. As my prisoners, I would see that they face such charges and pay for them.”

  “If you can do it, why not us?” was Red’s comeback.

  “Because they planned their crimes inside the Rim. Inside the belly of civilization. People like them, who might be contemplating such crimes, need to see this, and think long and hard the next time the idea comes up. Justice systems inside the Rim failed to halt this crime. They need a wake-up call. That’s not to sa
y you don’t have the right to try them yourselves. I’m just asking which better serves justice and the future.”

  “That sounds more like a political solution than a legal one,” Red pointed out.

  “Maybe ’cause it’s part of a political problem,” Bobby Joe pointed out before Kris said anything. Having half risen out of his chair to speak those words, Bobby Joe stood up.

  “My boy told me that Earth done given up on its Society of Humanity. Earth and some of its cronies are going their way. The rest of us are going our own way. I hear your great-grandpa done come out of retirement to be a king or something.”

  “Or something is more like it,” Kris said. “Lot of different folks going a lot of different ways. Turns out a lot of folks don’t like being told what to do.”

  That actually got a chuckle out of the barn.

  “But it gets kind of lonely out here on your own,” Bobby Joe said. “I guess I’m finding out that if you work like hell to make a good place, well, you better be ready to protect it, or somebody’s like to come along and steal it out from under you.”

  The proud old farmer looked around, saw a sad kind of agreement in the eyes of folks looking back at him. He nodded before going on. “What’s this United Sentients doing, and what does it cost to join it?”

  “They aren’t charging a membership fee,” Kris said, and immediately knew she’d missed the point.

  “Everything has a price. We’re learning our freedom has a price, and we ain’t been paying our dues. Now we’ll pay full price tomorrow. What’s your old fart asking?”

  Kris took a second to scratch her ear. Think. Then she shrugged and gave her usual answer. “Representatives from a hundred and twenty planets, maybe thirty by now, are meeting at Pitts Hope. I don’t know what they’ll decide. If you’re interested, I suggest you get some reps there to listen up, say a few words. Decide for yourself what you’ll give up and hold on to.”

  “That may be what we have to do,” Bobby Joe said.

  It was Gunny who stepped forward. “Ladies, gentlemen, who’s going to win tomorrow and who’s going to be surrendering isn’t something we can figure out tonight. But if we don’t get some sleep, it sure ain’t gonna help us.”