Kris Longknife - Admiral

by Mike Shepherd

  “We sure did,” Nelly interjected.

  “Yes, we did,” Kris agreed. “But my stomach still hasn’t loosened up from the shock I got when the fireworks started. I damn near had a heart attack.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Love,” Jack said, and reached an arm around her to pull her to him.

  “I’ve got to be more careful in the future,” Kris said.

  “We’ve got to give these squids more respect,” Abby said.

  “You’ve got to give me more respect,” Nelly said.

  “Yes, Nelly, you did it,” Kris said. “I thank you. Once again, you’ve saved all our lives. I know you’ll keep doing it, right up until the time comes when you don’t.”

  “And then none of us will be around to rib you about that failure,” Abby muttered softly.

  Nelly sniffed loudly, but let the human have the last word.

  Kris and Abby joined Amanda, sitting pool side and praising their little ones as they bounced around under the careful tutelage of their teachers. They oh’d when a little one jumped into the pool into a teacher’s arms. They ah’d as a bigger kid swam five or ten strokes out to where their teacher stood.

  “You know,” Amanda said, “we ought to get out of our clothes and bounce around with our kids.”

  Kris was saved from having to strip in front of all her underlings by Nelly.

  “Kris, the Marines at the front gate report that there’s an Iteeche who says he’s an Admiral Grant Ironcloth.”

  “You mean Coth, Admiral of the First Grand Order of Iron. Nelly, is there something wrong with the Marine’s translation program?”

  “No, Kris. More like there’s something wrong with your Marine’s grasp of Iteeche rank. I’ll see what I can do about getting a complete set of officer rank insignias to the Gunnies. That will get them to the privates post haste.”

  “Okay. Tell the Marines to give him an escort and guide him to my day quarters.”

  “More likely, the Marine will need an escort to find your day quarters,” Abby drawled.

  “Nelly . . .” Kris began.

  “I already have a mini drone lighting his way, Kris.”

  “Very good, Nelly,” Kris said, and made her excuses for not jumping in the new swimming hole with her friends.

  18

  Kris found her way back to her day quarters. It had taken her enough time to accept that her ‘office’ aboard ship was her ‘day quarters.’ She was not about to force herself to switch back and forth. Especially since it looked like she’d be spending more time aboard ship than downside.

  Her day quarters had filled out very nicely. All she needed was a pair of goalposts to hold a bloody soccer game in the place. Kris checked her desk, it was still empty. No reports had been delivered yet. At least this admiral’s arrival meant she had gotten one of her demands. She’d let him chase after the reports.

  There was a knock at her door. She said enter, then wondered if she needed to shout to be heard. Nelly, however, likely amplified her words, or maybe had them come from the door, itself?

  A Marine corporal entered, announced, “Admiral of the First Grand Order of Iron Coth, Admiral.”

  Someone had furthered that young woman’s education on the way up here. “Thank you, Corporal, that will be all.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” and the Marine was gone.

  The admiral began the long hike to where Kris stood in a conversation pit in front of what looked like a roaring fire. “Quite a place you have here,” Coth said. His head turned around, almost fully, then turned back to Kris. “Am I correct? Was that a woman warrior?”

  “Yes, as am I, Admiral.” Kris said, pointedly, though she suspected her inflection might be lost on the Iteeche.

  “A Longknife I’m not surprised to see in a killer’s uniform. Do you have a race of Amazons?”

  “A lot of human women will kill you, if you train them right and give them a reason to.”

  “Am I getting off on the back foot?” the admiral asked as he came up to Kris.

  “No. If we are to work closely together, we will have to learn about each other. I know of no way to learn other than by asking questions. I know that our two people are very different. I want to know as much as I need to know about you so that I can give your Emperor what he wants from me. I think you want the same.”

  “If it means ending this double dark rebellion, I’d swim the ocean underwater and get these worthless gill slits working again.”

  Kris noted that his uniform did not hide his vestigial gill slits. The coloration of the different slits said he was happy and hopeful, but also cautious.

  RIGHT, KRIS.

  Kris was grateful for Nelly’s verification. It had been a while since she’d had to read gill slits.

  “So, Lady Admiral, where do we go from here?”

  “I am not a lady, admiral. I am a princess. If you wish to address me by my formal titles, I am Her Royal Highness, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife of Wardhaven. If you intended to add a feminine comment to my rank, it would be taken as condescending and viewed with disapproval,” Kris said, cooly.

  “Well, that’s a mistake I won’t make again,” he said. Then he bowed from the waist to her and said, “How may I serve Your Royal Highness, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife of Wardhaven?”

  Kris authorized herself a soft chuckle. “And if you do that all the time, there won’t be enough hours in a work day for all we need to get done.”

  “There already aren’t enough hours in the day for all that needs doing,” he growled.

  “Just so. In my Navy, it is not unusual for admirals working together to call each other by our common name. Mine is Kris. We reserve our surname, in my case Longknife, for public occasions and for when a senior is displeased with a subordinate.”

  “I am Coth, just Coth. I come from no clan and have not been adopted into one. I was chosen by a junior sailor and have spent my entire life studying the Navy: command, war fighting, administration, and logistics.”

  “So you have risen far above what those higher up would have expected of you.”

  “No doubt. Sometimes the Navy does allow it. There have been pirate infestations and a few minor rebellions. I was willing to get my hands dirty and I showed myself useful.”

  “But you may see the Empire different from a senior Clan member.”

  “Definitely.

  “Among us, we would say that you have seen the dirty underbelly of the lovely beast.”

  “That is a good phrase. I will have to remember it. However, outside these walls, I would never use it. Some might think I do not worship my Emperor properly, or that I did not think that Clan shit did not stink.”

  “I think I will enjoy working with you. What have they told you about your new job?”

  “Only to get my ass over here as quickly as I could get myself back to the capitol.”

  “I was told you were needed elsewhere after we met the first time.”

  “I was ordered to a backwater station and given some trainees to kick into shape. I am sure they will be relieved to find my shining face is not there to greet them this morning.”

  Both of them enjoyed a chuckle at that vision.

  “How long were you in transit?” Kris asked. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “I have learned to sleep almost anywhere. The air transport was much better than some places I have slept.”

  “So, may I offer you a seat?” Kris said, and pointed with an open hand to an Iteeche chair, such as they knew how to make one. “I noticed that Ron’s Chooser was in something much more involved that supported his back. Nelly, could you adjust his seat a bit?”

  The stool sprouted a back that had to arch up over the hips before it swept forward to support his back.

  “You will spoil me,” Coth said.

  “I will no doubt exhaust you as well. Accept the good I can give when it comes your way.”

  “So, this is what you do with the smart metal?”

  “My computer has
been told by a high clan leader that she a sorceress. She insists on proving herself as just that every chance she gets.”

  “I saw how your travel chair became quite a pavilion.”

  “That was all done by my computer, Nelly. She enjoys surprising people. I had told her to surprise me, and she certainly did.”

  “You talk of your computer as if it was not a box of chips?”

  “I am not a box of chips,” Nelly said from Kris’s collar bone.

  “Admiral, may I introduce you to Nelly. I have had her since the time I entered the Palace of Learning. I chose not to replace her, but to upgrade her. One time, we even put into her matrix a bit of the computer the ancient races left on Santa Maria. She now tells horrible jokes and argues with me.”

  “I have given sworn testimony before a court of law on Musashi. I am a mother, and if I hadn’t been flying the 75,000 tons of metal that is now this castle last night, half of your capital would be a smoking ruin.”

  When Coth stared at Kris in wonder, she briefed him on the events of last night’s landing. “Needless to say, I was livid that the Empire could not control matters in their own capital. In my anger, I stormed over to Roth and told him if I didn’t get some things I needed, I’d pick up my bat and ball and go home. You, by the way, are one of those things I demanded.”

  “You didn’t actually march your warrior honor guard through the bedrooms of the Clan’s most honored women, did you?”

  “You have heard?”

  “It had the military airport all abuzz. At the time I didn’t understand, and I had no time to spare to stop and ask.” The Iteeche busted out laughing and ended up using all four hands to hold his belly. “Snakes and sea monsters, it is going to be fun working with you, my delightful human woman. Ah, Grand Admiral. Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel, if you will excuse me.”’

  “I am honored by all of them. I am also a mother. You might say Chooser. I am also in a lifelong bond with a human male, my husband, Lieutenant General Jack Montoya.”

  “I hope I can meet him soon.”

  “No doubt you will. Now. I need a chief of staff. Do you have something like that?”

  “A master of logistics. I will be honored to see to your logistics.”

  “No, in our Navy, a commander for a large force down to a command of a thousand, may have a staff. One officer handles operations. It is his honor to prepare plans for battle. Another officer looks after logistics, as you said. One examines the training needs of the personnel, see that vacancies are filled and does the paperwork for promotions. One is responsible for intelligence. What do we know about the enemy? How may we surprise them and not be surprised ourselves? All of those are led by a chief of staff. He juggles all these. He listens when I plan battles and may challenge me if he thinks I am wrong. He may point out potential problems so that they may be examined and either corrected or mitigated if I chose to go forward. When I make a decision, he sees that it is executed fully. If I am forward with the troops and there is a need for commands, he may issue orders in my name.”

  Kris paused to review her thumbnail sketch of a Navy staff. “I have known chiefs of staff who won battles while their commander was puking out his guts in the head.”

  “I am an admiral because I did something like that.”

  “I doubt you will ever have to do that for me, but if I am wounded in battle, until the flag is transferred to a successor, and it should be done quickly, still, you may have to give orders in the heat of battle. You up to that kind of fight?”

  “You would make me your number one staff officer? You’re offering me more fun than the last time I spawned,” Coth said, enthusiastically.

  “Good. I have a chief of staff for the human side, the Grand Admiral side. You will be my chief of staff for the Iteeche side, the Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel. Your first order of business will be to recruit your own staff.”

  “My Admiral, you make this better and better.”

  “I want people on staff who are tired of losing. Who hate losing. Who refuse to lose.”

  “I know a few.”

  “For political reasons, we will need to have some with strong clan standing. We cannot give the clans any more reason to plot against us. I need winners all, but I also need political connections. Are there a few like that?”

  “I think I can find some.”

  “I expect we will need a staff of two or four hundred, maybe even six hundred. We’ll need our own communications team. Or own computer network and data handling team. Think big.”

  “You want to be fully supported.”

  “I do not want to have to make decisions by guessing what is happening. I want to have reports coming to me and orders going away from me. I do not want to waste time on the small, the minor, the insignificant.”

  “Oh, my. I have heard many who marveled at how a people so small and weak and short-handed managed to beat us. I begin to see why.”

  “Yes. Since we climbed out of trees and learned to walk upright, we have been pounding on bigger animals with sharper teeth, faster legs, and stronger arms. We do it by thinking. Now, one more thing.”

  “Only say it and it will be done.”

  Kris had the Iteeche’s full enthusiastic support. A warrior’s support.

  “I need the after-action reports from the battles that your Navy has fought with the rebels. I need to know how battlecruisers have been used to fight battlecruisers. What worked. What didn’t. Surely you have reports written up after the fights.”

  Suddenly, her Iteeche looked a lot less happy. “Normally, yes. Unfortunately, the battlecruiser fights have not been normal in any way. The two major fights had no surviving admirals. The ship captains that did were disgraced and barely avoided making formal apologies to the Emperor. They have been deprived of their commands and sent to shovel shit.”

  “I want them assigned to me. I want to talk to them. We have a saying that no army learns from another army’s defeat.”

  “We have such a saying. ‘Defeat is a hard school master.’ Some in our command have forgotten that wisdom.”

  “Get me those captains. Some of them may become admirals in our fleet.”

  “You may have a hard time giving them command of squadrons or sections, much less flotillas.”

  “I have asked for a thousand ships. I do not want any admirals with them. I am not sure I want their captains. I fight fast. I evade hard. I do not fight an old man’s war. Captains who are too old and stuck in the mud of their ways will not stay in my fleet for very long.”

  The Iteeche admiral looked hard at Kris. “You know that you will be hitting a lot of spawning ponds with high water.”

  “I take that to mean I will upset a lot of people.”

  “A whole lot of very powerful people.”

  “Who have been losing fights for the Emperor.”

  “Yes, there is that.”

  “We will win and they will know that we are right.”

  “I hope you can get the rebels to fight you soon, because if they don’t, you may be stabbed in the back before the rebels ever get a chance to kill you.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know that. Now. I need a staff. I need the defeated captains to write up what they know about how the battles were fought. I need Iteeche communication and data processing gear. How soon before you can get all this?”

  “Where will we set up?”

  “Nelly, can you arrange an Iteeche Navy annex? Something that lets them enter through the main gate but then switches out to a work area that is theirs alone. No access for humans except those authorized, just as the Iteeche will have no access to human spaces except through a guarded point.”

  “You want to keep that knife from your back, huh?”

  “I want to avoid my humans disrupting the Iteeche Empire as much as possible, and yes, I want to limit access to my quarters to only those I want to meet.”

  “Kris, look out the window,” Nelly said.

  A cylinder
of gleaming glass and Smart MetalTM was rapidly rising above the entrance gate of the palace. Thick pillars supported it a good three meters above the roof of the Pink Coral Palace. It stopped growing at something like twenty stories. There, an elevator tube provided cross access to the main castle where it changed from lateral to merge into one of the lines going up and down the main castle.

  The Iteeche admiral’s mouth hung open.

  “Your computer can do that!”

  “It is as easy as eating pie,” Nelly said, “Or factoring pi to the billionth place.”

  “I do not want to fight you humans. Ever again.”

  “Wait until you see what my humans can do in a fight with Iteeche battlecruisers,” Kris said. “But first, there is much we must do.”

  Megan entered Kris’s day quarters, a small box held in her hand. They watched as she approached. “Nelly suggested to me,” the aide de camp said, “that I get the admiral a commlink so he can join our net.”

  “Thank you, Nelly,” Kris said. “Is that the top of the line?”

  “This is the best commlink computer, short of Nelly, that we have among those of this embassy.”

  “Very good. Admiral, Nelly oversees our communications net. If you ask Nelly to reach me, even if I’m in the bath, she can connect us. I may ask her to take calls if I’m busy, but she’ll make sure I call you back. This isn’t just a telephone. It’s also a computer. It can take notes, write reports, and do more than you can imagine.”

  Megan handed the commlink to the Iteeche admiral. He strapped it to his right front wrist. “Nelly?” he asked cautiously.

  “Yes, Admiral,” she answered from the commlink.

  Kris stood. “Tell Nelly how things are going. If you encounter too many delays or pushbacks, I’ll take another mad rush at the honorable Roth.”

  As Coth stood he muttered, “Hopefully without invading the ladies’ bedrooms.”

  On his feet, all four of them, Coth struck a fist to where his heart might be. “I am yours to command. I march to make it so.”

  “Do you need an escort out?”

  “Ah, yes, please.”