Bold

by Mike Shepherd

  “Someone has to,” Diana said. “She may not have been waving her boobs around for every man to see, like the Empress did, but that girl is drop-dead gorgeous, and I don’t trust you guys not to think with the wrong head.”

  “Diana, I’m a bit old to let a pretty face run away with my hardheaded logic,” Al said.

  “I’ll believe it when I don’t see it,” Diana said.

  “Have we done enough for the night?” Kris said through a yawn.

  “I think we’ll have our work cut out for us in the morning,” Bill said, “but we’re done here.”

  “Then shoo. Get out of my house,” Kris said.

  The others left, and she and Jack found themselves once more in bed.

  “Jack, I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything left for us.”

  “Don’t be sorry, I’m running on empty, too.”

  “Will you at least hold me?”

  Jack rolled over, and she scrunched her way until her back rested against him. He put an arm over her. Kris breathed a soft sigh . . . and was out like a light.

  40

  Kris sat as comfortably as she could in dress blues with all the required fruit salad. Surrounding her in her flag bridge was Jack, in full dress blue and reds, as well as her brain trust. Commander Ajax, on her bridge, brought the plus-sized Princess Royal smoothly up to High St. Petersburg Station. The rest of the squadron followed at thousand-kilometer intervals at Condition Baker.

  All hands had been advised that their ships might go to Condition Zed with no notice. Kris’s lifesaving paranoia was once more bubbling to the surface. Still, the chance to put on a display of what her frigates could do was not to be passed up.

  Ahead, there had been a lot of juggling of pier assignments. Without any request from Kris, eight piers had been opened up for her squadron, all next to each other.

  The pier assignment for the Princess Royal would have her sharing with that honking big battleship.

  “Nelly, who are we tying up next to?”

  “That large battleship squawks as the Imperial battleship Retribution, Kris.”

  “They still claim to be Imperial?” Jack asked.

  “All of them are squawking as Imperial ships, Jack. They have added a second line to their identification, though. They all report they are part of St. Petersburg division of the Greenfeld Imperial Navy Reserve Fleet.

  “St. Petersburg division of the Greenfeld Imperial Navy Reserve Fleet?” Jack echoed. “That’s quite a mouthful.”

  “Any comments?” Kris asked her brain trust. They stared blankly back at her, contributing nothing.

  Kris ran a worried hand through her hair. “It does appear they are doing their level best to claim to be loyal subjects of their Emperor and part of the Greenfeld Imperial Navy,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “However, the Empress claims that the Imperial fleet is in rebellion,” Jack pointed out. “The words mean nothing. They could be a cover story to make the Sailors think they are still loyal.”

  Kris sighed. “Agreed.” She had thought that facing several gigantic alien mother ships was the worst of all possible fates. It seemed that humans with their ways of obfuscating a situation had come up with something worse. With an alien, you knew where you stood; they wanted you dead. You had to kill them.

  Kris knew someone in the Greenfeld Empire wanted her dead. Those two battleships ambushing her at that jump told her that. The try at killing Jack and the nano assaults screamed something. Someone was out to kill her and hers, but who?

  Easy to know. Not so easy to figure it out.

  “Do we know anything about that big battlewagon, the Retribution?” Kris asked, hunting for something concrete.

  “Not much,” Nelly said. “It’s got those sixteen 18-inch lasers. Lots of secondary and tertiary guns. Oh, Kris, it just changed its squawk. They’ve unfurled a three-star flag, so to speak, and are reporting that they are the flagship of the Vice Admiral, the Imperial Grand Duchess, Her Grace, Victoria.”

  The room was silent for a long moment.

  “I wish they’d done that a bit earlier, like from the time we first read their identification, friend or foe,” Jack said.

  Kris nodded. She could think of a dozen reasons for that late addition to their information. At least half of them were not good.

  “We’re coming alongside the pier now,” Nelly reported.

  Kris heard the solid “thumps” through the hull as Commander Ajax caught the four tie-downs and ran her bloated ship smoothly along the pier, giving up the last bit of momentum.

  The 1MC reported a minute later, “All hands secure from underway stations. Set the in-port watches.”

  “The brow is in place to the quarterdeck,” Nelly reported.

  Jack added to that a minute later, “My Marines have established a pier-side watch with no problems.

  “I have feed from the quarterdeck,” Nelly reported.

  “Put it on screens,” Kris ordered.

  The first screen showed a lieutenant commander standing as Officer of the Deck at the lip of the brow. Beside him, a young JG had on the JOOD brassard. He waited patiently, if a bit anxiously, for his senior to tell him what to do.

  Kris remembered all too well having that duty not so long ago and smiled.

  A dozen Sailors stood at ease along the bulkhead, ready to render honors or serve as runners or guides.

  Commander Ajax ran a right and tight ship.

  A second camera covered the pier. At the foot of the brow, four Marines stood at ordered arms. Beside them, a sergeant, sword in hand, stood by to render honors.

  “Their rifles loaded?” Kris asked.

  “Nope,” Jack answered. “Only the sergeant’s automatic. They have orders to withdraw at the first sign of something going ass over teakettle.”

  More screens showed the go-down to the pier from the station’s A deck. Nothing moved. A camera focused on the brow across the pier from them showed four Marines in Imperial black-and-green dress uniforms, at order arms with a sergeant, sword in hand, standing by. A mirror image of the Princess Royal’s guard.

  “Any nano problems?” Kris asked.

  “Not so much as a buzz,” Nelly reported.

  Kris glanced at her brain trust and raised an eyebrow. They remained as unmoved as statues.

  “Do you think we ought to give her the full treatment, honor guard and all, like we did the Emperor?” Jack asked.

  Kris shook her head. “I don’t think Vicky wants all the fancy stuff. If I read her right, she just wants to talk.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “If the word gets back to the Empress, it will probably work better if we didn’t.”

  “Kind of my thoughts, too.”

  One screen caught the sound of a bosun’s pipe. “Grand Duchess departing. St. Petersburg Reserve Fleet departing. Battle Squadron Two departing.”

  The camera focused on the other gangplank caught a young woman rendering honors and hurrying down the brow, followed by two older men. Between them, they carried enough gold braid to outfit a circus.

  “I think we’ve got company coming,” Kris said. “Let’s go, Jack.”

  “Can we come, too?” Diana asked.

  “Why don’t you stay here,” Kris said. “I’ll bring that herd of elephants to you.”

  That would cut down on the mob at the quarterdeck. Besides, Kris didn’t want civilians messing up the time-honored dance of a well-ordered quarterdeck.

  Straightening her dress blue coat with all the spangles that Ruthie could ask to jam into her mouth, Kris left to see just what had become of the junior officer she once knew.

  41

  Kris stepped directly from her day quarters to the quarterdeck. The band had just finish their tuning and was going to parade rest with their instruments. Captain Ajax and the OOD had their heads to
gether, whispering earnestly. Kris joined them.

  “How many sideboys do we give her?” Ajax asked, bringing Kris into their dilemma.

  “Eight,” Kris said. “She’s the heir apparent to the Imperium. Alternately, she’s the leader of a rebellion. That qualifies for eight in my book. Oh, and make them all girls if you will, Captain.”

  A nod from his skipper, and the OOD went to assign eight women to sideboy duties.

  Kris looked around the quarterdeck. “Nelly, please add my flag next to the US ensign. Also, put a Greenfeld flag on the forward bulkhead of the quarterdeck, and when the bosun pipes Vicky aboard, make a three-star flag appear.”

  “Glad to,” Nelly said, her voice holding pure delight, as a blue flag with four white stars appeared to the left of the US ensign.

  The sidegirls paraded into their place beside the gangplank; Kris, Jack at her elbow, took her place across from Captain Ajax and her OOD and JOOD. With a deep breath, she prepared for what would come next.

  Vicky was leading the charge up the brow. She took in the zoo on the quarterdeck with a glance . . . and blanched. She whispered something to the Vice Admiral trailing her. He only had to glance at what lay ahead of them before he smiled and took over the lead.

  Someone doesn’t know how to accept formal flag honors, Kris thought, and swallowed a smile.

  The chief bosun’s mate of the watch had been paying attention to how this pack of circus elephants had conducted their exit from the Retribution. Without batting an eyelash, he piped honors, and announced, “St. Petersburg Reserve Fleet arriving.”

  A vice admiral in dress blues turned to salute the Greenfeld Imperial ensign, then did an about-face and saluted the Royal US ensign. He held his salute as he turned to Kris and her collection of officers and stepped past Kris before turning again. Now he saluted his arriving Grand Duchess.

  Vicky squared her shoulders and took her first step. Behind Kris, the band went into ruffles and flourishes. Four sets of them.

  Vicky paused; her mouth hung open just a smidgen. Then she took a deep breath and marched to the top of the brow as ruffles and flourishes segued to the Imperial March.

  The chief bosun’s mate piped, “Grand Duchess arriving.” Vicky earnestly went through the same process as the first admiral, not missing a step, despite a tremble on her lower lip. Her eyes went wide as her three-star flag unfurled beside the Greenfeld Imperial flag.

  The trailing rear admiral kept his distance so as to not step on Vicky’s official greetings. That done, he marched forward to be piped aboard as “Second Battle Squadron.” Once he’d saluted everyone, the saluting was over and introductions began.

  “Wow, Kris,” Vicky said. “Just wow.”

  “It’s your due, Admiral,” Kris pointed out.

  “I guess it is, but . . . wow. Oh, right, I’m dropping the ball. Kris, I’d like you to meet Vice Admiral von Mittleburg, who was kind enough to give me refuge when I thought I was lost beyond hope. Beside him is Rear Admiral Bolesław. He’s been my flag captain and saved my butt more times than I care to count.”

  Kris shook hands all around, and introduced Lieutenant General Juan Montoya and Captain Ajax before inviting her guests to join her in her in-port quarters.

  “Right this way,” and in a few steps they were there. Since the time Kris had left, Nelly had made it over into the lush digs that had greeted the Emperor and Empress.

  “Nelly, my flag quarters do not need to look like an overpriced whorehouse for these people. They work for a living.”

  “Sorry, I thought you’d want to lay it on equal for her as we had to do for the Emperor and Empress.”

  “This was what Dad wanted?” Vicky asked, looking around to take it all in. “And how did you do all this, Nelly?”

  “Easily. We’ve discovered a lot of new things we can do with Smart Metal,” Kris’s computer answered.

  “Down, girl, or should I say girls. Nelly, give us enough comfortable chairs for the mob I’ve got here and get rid of the statues, paintings, and woodwork.”

  They began to melt into the deck, bulkheads, and overhead.

  “You might keep those nudes, Nelly,” Vicky said with a chuckle. “Is Kris really loosening up in her old age?”

  “I’ll have you know, I’m an old married woman, with a kid to boot,” Kris announced, not managing to keep the pride out of her voice.

  “You’ve got a baby!” Vicky squeed.

  “You want to see her?”

  “Of course. I’ve always wanted to meet a Longknife I was smarter than.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Kris tried to growl, but there was way too much smile on her face to carry it off.

  So Ruth got brought out and passed between Kris and Vicky. The two admirals took two steps back when it looked like they might be offered the tiny human. Kris gave Jack the stink eye when he joined them.

  Guys against the gals, huh, she thought, apparently too loudly.

  I DON’T WANT THEM TO FEEL UNSUPPORTED, Jack answered on Nelly Net.

  Once Ruth was taken off to get an aromatic diaper changed, Kris introduced her brain trust.

  “Do you think you can really figure a way out of this mess we’re in?” Vicky asked them, and got the same noncommittal mumbles Kris had had to put up with so far.

  “Yeah,” Vicky said into the silence, “it’s a mess. We’ve had quite a few years to get into it, and it’s going to take quite a few years to get out of it.”

  Kris eyed Vicky. The Grand Duchess met her eye to eye.

  “Yeah, I’m not the stupid little girl you left on High Chance, and Kris, I want to apologize for hanging you out to dry in that interview. I was alone. I was scared, and I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  Kris canted her head to one side. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  Vicky nodded. “I’ve done a lot of growing up . . . fast. It was either that, or my stepmother would have killed me.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  Vicky was shaking her head before Kris finished the question. “Could you ever prove that my dad was trying to kill you?” she shot back.

  Kris winced. “Some Peterwalds are very good at not leaving fingerprints. So, ignoring the personal for a moment, what can you tell me about the situation here in the Empire?”

  “What did they tell you?”

  Kris shook her head. “This is your time to talk to me. I’m listening.”

  Vicky looked at Vice Admiral von Mittleburg. He nodded to her, and she took a deep breath.

  “I knew things were crazy when Rear Admiral Gort picked me up on High Chance. He had three options for my delectable body. First”—a finger went up—“deliver me to my loving father at the Palace, as per his orders. Second”—and another finger went up—“he had been given a very large bribe to deliver my very lovely, but very dead body to the Palace. The last option was accompanied by a smaller bribe and involved handing me over to other people, unknown, to be used to raise a rebellion against my father.”

  Kris eyed the two admirals. “Such as these two?” she said.

  “No! No,” Vicky said, shaking her head emphatically. “Whoever that group was, they’ve vanished. I really don’t know a lot about the last two options because Admiral Gort took a bullet intended for me, and what he knew died with him.”

  Kris studied Vicky. The death of the admiral actually moved her.

  Not at all the old Vicky I knew.

  “We took the admiral’s body home to Bayern, a Navy retirement colony where I was introduced to a batch of retired admirals and some wives who weighed the decision to kill me or send me back to the Palace.”

  “Not start a rebellion?” Diana asked.

  “No, Your Honor. None of us saw any chance to get a revolution going. Things were bad but not that bad.”

  Vicky sighed. “They sent me back to the Pa
lace, kind of like a spy. I thought I might be able to find something out. Stupid me.”

  Vicky’s eyes got lost in the distance. When she spoke again, it was softly. “I dodged three or four assassination attempts a day for three, maybe four days before they got me. The Marine captain escorting me was killed. I was raped, but I got the drop on them and killed my kidnappers.” For a moment, her eyes focused on Kris.

  “You’d have been proud of me, killing my kidnappers and getting away before the Empress, or whoever, came to kill me. The Navy helped me get away from Greenfeld but had no idea what to do with me. Some thought I might hide out in a Navy colony, but my new Navy escort wasn’t so sure someone wouldn’t turn me in, not with the size of the price on my head. He thought I might hide out in one of the new US colonies, but I knew the money would make no place safe for me. The final option was to make a run to Wardhaven and throw myself on your King Ray’s mercy.”

  Vicky shook her head. “That would take me out of the game. The only way I’d be able to come back would be at the head of an army provided by your great-grandfather, and that stank.”

  Vicky shrugged. “So I came to St. Petersburg and threw myself on the locals’ mercy. It hasn’t worked out too badly, has it?” she said, eyeing the two admirals.

  “It certainly hasn’t been boring,” Vice Admiral Bolesław said through a grin.

  “It never is boring around us, is it, Kris?”

  “Nope,” Kris agreed.

  “The Empress tried a couple of attacks. I stopped one by driving her appointed commander into a heart attack,” Vicky said with a chuckle, then glanced at the junior admiral beside her. “Admiral Bolesław stopped another one by scaring the Navy officers into killing the Empress’s terminally stupid commander. We’ve done our best to avoid letting the slaughter get out of hand. Most of the young Sailors on both sides are just following their officers.”

  Vicky glanced at her two admirals. They nodded their agreement.

  Kris liked what she was hearing. Of course, Vicky was telling her what she must know would bring Kris over to her side. Kris knew her hardheaded brain trust needed more than just happy words.