Kris Longknife: Mutineer

by Mike Shepherd

  “Nelly, we’ve got to talk,” Kris growled through a smile.

  “I don’t know how she did it.” Nelly sounded startled, with more than a tinge of hurt, if an AI was capable of such.

  “What will you have?” the student server asked, taking in Kris’s undress whites without so much as a blink. Apparently the Navy wasn’t unwelcome today. How things change.

  “Coffee,” Kris ordered.

  “Coffee,” the others repeated.

  As the server turned for the drinks, Tommy passed him.

  He slid into the chair next to Kris. “How’d the morning go?”

  Kris considered warning him of what lay ahead but decided she wanted to be able to say under oath that she had not coordinated any of her testimony with Tom.

  “Worse than some, not as bad as facing Captain Thorpe.”

  The waiter returned with a pot of coffee and cups. Grampas Ray and Trouble came through the door as the coffee was poured. As they stopped across from Kris, the waiter took them in with a glance. “What do you want?” he said, then frowned, worried his lower lip for a second, then his eyes got very big. “Sir.”

  Trouble seemed used to the reaction. He glanced around the table and ordered. “Beer, dark, fresh brewed, one,” he said, pointing at himself. “Two,” he pointed at Ray. “Three,” as his moving finger took in Harvey and he got a return nod. “Four” was Tru; “five” was a very bug-eyed Tom. Poor guy seemed torn between falling through the floor or taking the beer. Jack and Kris shook off the offer. “Five then.”

  As the waiter headed for the bar, Trouble took the last chair. In a second, Jack was up and offering his chair to Ray.

  “Mr. President,” he said.

  “Not president today,” Trouble said in supreme gloat as Ray clouded up. Ignoring him, Trouble turned to Kris.

  “Who are these good-looking guys?”

  “I think you met Tom at the reception, if he wasn’t too busy hiding.” Tom tried to nod at her grampas and glower at Kris, all at the same time. “He also was my right arm when the Typhoon took on the rest of the squadron.”

  “Well done, son,” came from both older men. And the rest of Tom’s face turned as red as his freckles.

  Kris figured Tom had about as much concentrated Longknife attention as he could survive. “This other fellow is my new Secret Service agent. Jack, meet Trouble. He’s supposed to be my great-grandpa, but to Mother, he’s just trouble.”

  “Still?”

  “She hasn’t forgiven you for introducing me to orbital skiffs.”

  “Woman has too long a memory.”

  “Excuse me, I’ll be over by the door,” Jack said, backing away while still trying to keep his attention fully on the people talking to him as well as do the required search sweeps. Almost Kris laughed, but she remembered too well whose job it was to take her bullet.

  Trouble grabbed the agent’s elbow. “No way. You hang around us, you might as well know the seamy side. Besides, this old codger sitting next to me needs special protection.”

  Jack eyed Ray. “From whom?”

  “Himself,” Trouble chortled.

  “I may slit my throat,” Ray grumbled.

  “Don’t let him fool you,” Trouble cut in, grabbing a chair from the next table and pulling it over for Jack to settle into. “Ray’s tickled pink.”

  “It’s a lousy idea,” Ray spat. “It’s half-baked. They don’t know what they really want, and this whole lash-up is a poor way to fix whatever problem they want solved.”

  Still unenlightened, they paused while the drinks arrived. Trouble raised his mug. Automatically, the others followed suit with beer or coffee. “To His Majesty, King Raymond the First of that name,” Trouble intoned.

  Kris clanked her mug with the rest, mainly because Trouble was busy making sure there was a loud enough clink to drown out Ray’s raspberry response to the toast.

  “King who of what?” she said after a sip of her coffee.

  Glowering at Trouble, Ray explained. “Some jokers who are old enough to know better think they’d have an easier time keeping sixty or eighty planets together in some kind of federation if they had a king sitting in the middle of all their politicking. By tomorrow they’ll have thought it through and realized what a crappy idea it is.” Ray raised his glass. “To peace and quiet in a well-earned old age.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Harvey said, joining the toast.

  Kris raised her mug with a heartfelt “Hear! Hear!” of her own.

  Ignoring them, Trouble leaned back and took a long pull from his beer. “In your dreams,” he muttered.

  “They want an ombudsman,” Ray snapped. “Well, I can be a fine ombudsman. I don’t need a crown on my head to listen to a lot of whining losers.”

  “Without a crown, you won’t last a week. You’ll tell them to stuff their bitching and take off for Santa Maria.”

  “Well, at least there, I’m doing something worth doing.”

  Trouble just shook his head. “Not like you’d be doing here? Ray, old boy, everything we built eighty years ago is coming apart. They want you to help keep a chunk of it together.” Kris nodded; glancing around the Scriptorum, she saw students whose lives were being decided for them by a lot of old men and women. Her own life among them. She and all these kids would be a lot better off with the likes of Grampa Ray in the mix.

  “Damn it, Trouble, we served our time. In any decent world we’d be dead and pushing up flowers, and kids like Kris here would be having all the fun. It’s not fair.”

  Involuntarily, Kris leaned back in her chair, counting the different emotions racing through her gut. She was glad her grampas were still around for her to get to know when she needed them. Yes, it was her world out there, but she didn’t mind sharing it.

  Trouble reached across the table to rest a hand on his friend’s elbow. “You still miss Rita.”

  “Every day, but that’s not what I mean. They really should be Kris’s worlds.”

  Now Kris leaned forward to touch a man who was more an icon than a person to her. “Grampa, they are my worlds. But that doesn’t mean there’s not room in them for you, too. They belong to me and the kids at the other tables…and they’re yours, too. It looks like we’re all in trouble. And if we need someone that we all remember as a good guy to have around to hold it together, well, did they say, ‘Buck up and soldier,’ back in your day?”

  “Probably more often than in yours,” Ray grumbled.

  “And next he’ll be telling you about walking twenty miles to school, uphill and in the snow, summer, winter, spring, and fall.” Trouble grinned. “Weren’t you the one saying a minute ago how we ought to respect them and let them have their world?”

  “Let them have it, yes. Respect them, never.”

  That got a laugh. Still, it was Ray who sobered first. “I still say this king idea hasn’t been thought through. Like not letting anyone in the king’s family sit in their parliament, what did they call it, ‘House of Commons.’ ”

  Kris, the political science student, sat up straight. She and her friends had come up with some really far-out ideas during their bull sessions at the Scriptorum. This was a new one on her. “What are they trying to do?”

  “They want to cut down on the money in politics,” Trouble explained. “For the twenty years Ray’s king, none of his kin can run for the House or donate money to any political party or campaign. They think that will keep big money out of politics. We noticed that your dad, Prime Minister Billy, wasn’t there.”

  Kris knew that money was the fuel and bane of politics. This approach had the advantage, if nothing else, of never being tried before. However, the mention of Father meant this scheme was going to stretch out to a certain Kris as well.

  “Hold it, Grampa. I think you’d make a great king. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to make me a princess, does it? ‘Cause I’ve got to tell you, I’ve had all the problems a growing girl can handle just being the prime minister’s brat.”

  Tro
uble barked a laugh, but Grampa Ray just stared across the table at Kris. Then he smiled. Kris had the feeling that fleets of Iteeche had died after such a smile. “Trouble, what if I make someone a duke or count?”

  “Didn’t know they were going to let you.” Trouble stroked his jaw. “They didn’t say anything about more royalty.”

  “There’s a lot of things they didn’t say anything about.”

  Kris shook her head. “Why do I think I should have kept my mouth shut?”

  “No, Princess,” Trouble said with an evil grin as Kris winced, “that’s just the kind of talk your grampas like. Gives us old coots great ideas.”

  “No, bad ideas. Very bad ideas,” Kris insisted to a grinning table.

  Grampa Ray sat there eyeing them with a tight smile for a moment, looking very much like Kris thought a king should. Maybe the human race could use a king just now.

  Before she finished the thought, Ray got to his feet. All followed him. He raised his mug, and five rose with his. “To us, and those like us. May there always be enough of the few to keep the worlds turning for the many.”

  Kris shivered and answered, “Hear! Hear!” with the rest. So this was what it felt like to be “us” to the likes of Trouble and Ray. This was what it meant to be “the few.” She took a deep pull from her coffee.

  And Nelly gave her polite equivalent of a cough. “Kris, you are wanted in General McMorrison’s office at one o’ clock.”

  “Oh, oh,” Tru said. “One of those Friday afternoon talks with the boss.”

  “Want us to put in a good word for you?” Trouble offered.

  Kris straightened her shoulders. “No sir. This is my problem. I’ll handle it.” It’s my career. I better be able to handle it.

  “Wouldn’t have expected any other answer,” Ray said. “What a Longknife gets into, we get ourselves out of.”

  “Probably ‘cause no one else could get themselves in so much, so fast, so deep,” Trouble grumbled through a smile.

  Kris laughed with them, realizing that they were giving her all they had to give. A joke and a laugh and a lighthearted confidence that she could handle her own problem. With that she took her leave of them.

  ****

  As he had this morning, Jack walked her into Main Navy. This trip covered several halls and an elevator before Jack announced unnecessarily, “Here’s Mac’s office.” He opened the door, and Kris presented herself to the general’s secretary. “Ensign Longknife reporting for a thirteen hundred meeting.” The clock behind the woman showed Kris to be thirty seconds early.

  “The general is waiting for you.”

  Kris squared her shoulders and marched forward. How hard could this be? She’d rescued a little girl…and got shipped off to a mud hole. She’d fed a lot of people…and damn near drowned for the honor. She’d gone hell for leather into her first live firefight…only to discover she needed to refine her targeting for her second. Now she’d led a mutiny and fought a small naval battle to prevent a bigger one. Explaining to the Chief of Staff of her father’s military just why and how she’d mutinied shouldn’t be too painful.

  The door slid open. General McMorrison was behind his desk, deep in reports, but he glanced up as she entered.

  She marched for the proper place in front of his desk, but as she did so, he was already out of his chair. A thin, graying man, he looked more like an accountant than a general, but he moved with quick, smooth steps around his desk.

  She ended up saluting a moving target. He answered with a wave in the general direction of his forehead that moved easily into an offered hand. As she shook it, he said, “Well done, Ensign. Very well done.”

  That was a good start. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Might as well get comfortable,” he motioned her in the direction of a couch.

  She settled onto one end as he took the chair next to it. Just as Grandfather Alex’s office was gray, this one was beige: tan walls, tan carpet, tan furniture. Even the general was wearing khakis. Kris crossed her ankles, folded her hands in her lap, and prepared for whatever was to come.

  The general cleared his throat. “I guess I should start by thanking you for saving my neck. All I could think of as AttackRon Six spread out was that after they’d made their run, they’d lead the survivors of a very mad Earth’s battle line right into Wardhaven’s fleet.”

  “Is that what Commodore Sampson intended?”

  “Yes, but that’s not for publication. The politicians are still trying to find a way to smooth this over.”

  “They’re going to have a hard time of it,” Kris said.

  “Where was Sampson planning on running? Who paid him?”

  “We’ve checked his banking records. I don’t think anyone paid him,” the general said wearily. “I think he was doing something he believed in.”

  Kris considered all the talk she’d heard from those in uniform and decided that was quite likely true. “Still, he’d have to take our ships somewhere. This wasn’t the start of an internal revolt on Wardhaven, was it?”

  “No, he apparently acted alone. He refused to tell us where he planned to take the squadron.”

  “Refused.” Kris didn’t like the finality of that word.

  “Commodore Sampson died of a heart attack last night.”

  That knocked Kris back. “A real one or…”

  “One of the other type.” The general scowled. “We were able to follow the money on that one. The fellow who brought him his supper last night had a strangely excessive bank account.”

  “You wouldn’t be willing to tell me where that money led?”

  “I suspect if I don’t, Tru will worm it out of our database soon enough for you.” He almost smiled. “A small businessman on Greenfeld. Runs a software firm.”

  “Makes Ironclad Software,” Kris finished.

  “Yes. We already noticed that unauthorized software on your ships, so this provides us no new leads,” the general said, settling deeper into his seat. “There is one bit of information that you might have a personal interest in. Commodore Sampson did select the Typhoon for that little girl’s rescue mission. He was quite angry that you disrupted his entire plan after surviving what he’d set you up for during the kidnapping.” McMorrison looked puzzled. “What did he do?”

  “I and my squad of marines were ordered to do a night drop…onto a minefield,” Kris said, both glad to have one mystery answered and frustrated that Sampson wasn’t around to answer more about it. There was no use following that one any further. “Are you getting anything out of the other people, like Thorpe?”

  “Painfully little. They claim that Commodore Sampson hadn’t told them what his battle plan was. They were just following orders.” The general made a sour face at that.

  “And what will you do with them?” The answer to that would pretty much tell her what was in store for a certain mutineer.

  “Hang them from the highest yardarm, even if I have to build it myself, is what I want to do. Nothing is what I’ll probably settle for.”

  “Nothing?” was out of Kris’s mouth before she knew it. Damn it, girl, you have to do something about yapping first, thinking second.

  “Nothing,” Mac repeated. “Oh, we’ll cashier them, though most are eligible for retirement. But a court-martial would only provide them the public forum they want. And I’ll be damned if I want either my officers wondering if they can trust their orders or the citizens of Wardhaven wondering if they can trust my officers.”

  It was hard to disagree with that. It also told Kris what awaited her.

  Mac reached over to the table beside his chair to pick up two small boxes. Opening one, he handed it across to Kris. She eyed its contents: the Legion of Merit. Nice medal. The second one contained the Navy Cross. Very nice medal.

  She held them in her lap for a moment, then closed the boxes and handed them back. She’d learned at Father’s knee to let silence grow until the other fellow fills it. General McMorrison took back the medals but set them on th
e table in front of her.

  “I’ve read Colonel Hancock’s full report. You did well on Olympia. Very good for a junior officer.” The emphasis was on junior. Kris ignored that and said, “Thank you,” softly so as not to interrupt or let the general off the hook for filling the silence.

  “You earned the Legion of Merit on Olympia,” Mac said. Kris nodded but refused to ask why the Navy Cross was on the table. Mac eyed her as the silence stretched, thinned out, and started to twang like an out-of-tune violin.

  “You are a problem, Ensign,” he finally growled. This time from the table he pulled a plastic flimsy and handed it to her. It was her resignation all filled out with today’s date.

  Kris locked her face down even as her stomach went into free fall. This was just another fight. Unlike the last one, the incoming was plastic and could not kill her. She finished reading and looked up. “You want me to sign this?”

  “Resign from the Navy today, and I’ll give you the Navy Cross for your part in whatever didn’t happen at Paris.”

  The general is politicking. “This my father’s idea?”

  He snorted. “If your father so much as peeps publicly he wants this, I’d be fighting him tooth and nail, just as publicly. Half my officer corps would have my head if I gave in to him.”

  Kris considered herself politically savvy; this clearly was a political hot potato in her hand. She glanced again at the resignation. “So why are you asking me to quit?”

  “You relieved your last CO, and his superior tried to kill you. Ensign Longknife, who should I assign you to next?”

  Kris tried to see herself from Mac’s perspective. Well, Hancock would have her back. Or would he? It had been a learning experience…for both of them. But it was not an experience either needed to repeat. Ship duty was her first choice. But what skipper would want to see her on his bridge? “Hi, sir, I’m the prime minister’s brat, maybe even a princess. I hope we get along fine. I relieved my last CO.” Right. No way they could give her her own command. Ensigns do not command. Besides, every command position was subordinated to someone. Mac here reported to her father, and Kris knew well that Father considered every voter on Wardhaven as his boss.