“I can't do that, Ron,” Kris said. Once, the thought of going with Ron would have brought a rosy hue to Kris's cheeks. Once, she'd thought that Ron might be the one man for her. But he'd gotten a good look at life around a Longknife, and he'd run, not walked, for the nearest exit. Next she heard from him, it was a wedding invitation that sadly lacked her name in the place of honor.
“Are you resisting arrest?” Ron demanded.
“No,” Kris said.
“Then explain yourself.”
Kris raised an eyebrow to Admiral Santiago and waited for her to do the honors of enlightening the governor of the planet below.
“What she means, Governor Torn, is that Chance never contributed a dime to the construction of this station. Wardhaven got it dumped on her when the Society of Humanity went poof. We've been defending it ever since. While she's on High Chance, Princess Kristine is on sovereign Wardhaven territory. You can apply to extradite her, but it would be a waste of time. You're way down the line of people demanding her scalp, and King Raymond I of United Society has staked his claim on the head of the line.”
“But my wife had a brother on the
Triumph
. What happened to him? That ship?”
“Last I saw of it, it was an expanding ball of glowing gas,” Kris said, making no effort to take the cruelty out of her words. “All our ships went out with a very big bang. I suspect they all blew their reactor containments to make sure the aliens didn't have anything to examine.”
“Kris,” Admiral Santiago snapped, “you are under orders not to say anything.”
“Then, Ron, why don't you head home. If you want, you can take the babies' picture.”
He snatched it and stalked away. He had to pass a detachment of Marines to get off the pier, but the admiral did not order them to relieve him of his picture.
Kris waited until he was out of sight, up the escalator to the main deck, then began unzipping her suit. Jack followed her lead.
“Theatrics,” Sandy said.
“You got to dress the part,” Kris said.
“So those kids are not all that dangerous,” the admiral said, sounding like she'd need some serious persuasion.
“Penny's taken the watch in the nursery. Her computer, Mimzy, has got a set of nano guards cruising that room that are guaranteed to let nothing in or out.”
“Mimzy, huh. I heard that Nelly got in the family way,” Sandy said. “Gal, who knocked you up?”
“I did it all by myself,” Nelly said proudly.
“It should be so easy,” Sandy drawled.
“She did have some help from my credit chit,” Kris said dryly.
“But you've been very glad I did,” Nelly shot back.
“We wouldn't have made it back without her and her brood,” Kris said. “We lost three of them along the way. Chief Beni, you remember him?”
“Yes, brilliant, if somewhat weak in leadership traits.”
“We lost him and two others.”
“I'm sorry, Kris. From the looks of things, you lost more than just them.”
“I observed six of the battleships that came with me be blown to dust. The last two,
Swiftsure
and the Imperial
Scourge
, were running for all they were worth when we took our only chance to duck out of the system. The aliens chased down two of my ships and blew them to bits. Taussig on the
Hornet
led them in one direction, so I could go in the other. That did let us shake them.”
“Did you get the mother ship you were aiming for?”
“We chewed up the stern half of something that made a moon look dinky. I don't know if that kept them from launching an attack on the avian race we were trying to protect. I need to go back,” Kris said.
“Not until you've seen the king.”
NELLY, SQUIRT SANDY THE TWO SHORT VERSIONS.
DONE.
The admiral's eyes widened as the quickest read of Kris's report came through to her. Kris reached over and slipped the tiny data cube into the admiral's pocket.
Sandy's hand slid in as Kris pulled out.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Read the whole report. Take special note of the DNA we took off the kids' parents. The aliens that plundered the planet and the ones that first shot at me hadn't intermarried for, say, ten thousand years. The kids' folks haven't met the other two populations in the last hundred thousand years. There are a whole lot of big uglies out there.” Kris paused to let her words sink in.
“If you want to after you read that, you can destroy it. I don't think you will. If you can see your way through to it, deliver a copy to Winston Spencer. He won't be able to use it, but it will help him know where to snoop.”
“You are going to get us into those adjoining cells in that deepest dungeon.”
Kris changed the subject. “Is it as bad as Ron makes it sound? Am I already being declared a war criminal?”
“Oh yes,” the admiral said. “Now, I've heard a whole lot more than I was supposed to, but then I'm a Santiago, and we're used to getting the bloody end of the Longknife legend. I've got orders to put you on the first fast courier ship available. They yanked the nearest one off its run when they heard you were here, and it's due to dock in five minutes. Right across from the
Wasp
.”
“I'll need to take Jack with me.”
“Sorry, girl, your orders are to go alone and say nothing to any of the crew.”
“Jack's my security chief. He's kept me alive I don't know how many times.”
“Kris, these courier ships are manned by people with the highest clearances. They carry packets that no one trusts to transmit in the securest ciphers. That, and you are ordered to go alone. Sorry, Jack, you stay here.”
Jack seemed to mull that claim over . . . and find it very lacking in substance. But several of the Marine guards were eyeing him with serious intent. Kris figured Jack could take them, but what would they do next?
With no good options, Kris let out a sigh. “Okay, Jack, you come along when the
Wasp
does. Or the
Wasp
's crew. I'm none too sure the old girl has another trip in her.”
“I'll get to Wardhaven as quickly as I can,” Jack assured her.
Across from Kris, a port opened, and a small young woman ducked out. “I'm supposed to pick up a Kris Longknife, whoever she is. I got a tight schedule, so let's get a move on.”
Suddenly there was no more time. Jack stood there, arms at his side.
She stood there, arms with nothing to do.
And Jack raised his hands to her, and suddenly she was in his arms, holding him holding her.
For the moment nothing mattered. Not the war, not the politics, not the confusion and hatred.
She held him and he held her and there was nothing but the warmth of his embrace and the beating of their two hearts.
Jack's fingers brushed her throat, sending shivers through her. She looked up at him. His lips trembled, soft and waiting. She kissed him.
Or maybe he kissed her.
All the wasted years and months and hours plunged into the seconds they had here and came away full of wonder.
“Pardon me. I've seen this kind of thing before, folks, and I understand, really I do, but I got my orders, and one of you needs to get his or her ass on my boat, pronto.”
The words of the skipper of the courier boat were insistent . . . and apparently well practiced.
The urge to tell the young woman what she could do with her orders was on Kris's lips, but she didn't want to break from the warmth of Jack's kiss.
The thought of her refusing her orders came to mind, quickly followed by the vision of Sandy ordering her Marines to pick Kris up and toss her in the boat.
She had her service-issue automatic. She could shoot it out right there on the pier. She'd likely end up dead or sleepydarted.
None of her prospects looked good.
She opened her eyes and gazed up into Jack's. The same agony was on his face that must be on hers.
“Damn, I wish we'd done this sooner,” he said.
“Me, too,” Kris said, and took a step back.
His hands refused to let her go, but held her even as she took a second and a third step away from him. Finally, only their fingers were touching.
Another backward step broke even that contact.
“I will find you,” he whispered.
“I will wait for you,” she whispered back.
Then she turned, every fiber of her being in agony and rebellion, and marched the short distance to where the courier pilot waited.
“Let's do what you have to do,” Kris said.
63
Kris had never made a trip at 4.25 gees. She'd heard that the courier ships did, but she'd never believed it possible. She spent the entire trip floating naked in a tub of something a lot more viscous than water. Food and water both came from a tube. The skipper sent a crewwoman around to catheterize Kris.
“This just for us girls?” Kris asked.
“Nope, I get to do it to the boys, too. You ought to see how they blush.”
Other than that visit, Kris was left alone for the entire, though quick, flight to Wardhaven.
In the brief seconds that Nelly took to send Sandy Kris's report, Sandy's computer sent Nelly the latest update of Winston Spencer's report on what was happening inside human space.
Refusing to give in to the temptation to wallow in self-pity and regret, Kris had Nelly run the news feed. It held no surprises.
As she'd expected, once the wreckage and bodies from her first encounter with the aliens arrived at Santa Maria, the story went public. Suddenly, everyone knew the Iteeche were losing scout ships to some unknown horror and that the mercurial Kris Longknife had insisted on taking out a squadron to see what there was to see.
That eight battleships had been added to her force by various concerned parties didn't make it into the media.
Not then. That was saved for when the second report came back.
Kris thanked her lucky stars that a beauty like Amanda Kutter had taken the ride back to human space. She was too lovely not to be invited to all the talk shows. If she hadn't been out there talking, the only story in the media would be that Kris Longknife had taken it into her head to attack some poor, innocent alien ship that was just wandering through the cosmos minding its own business.
If Kris had been reading a report, she would have thrown it across the room in her fury. Of course, at 4.25 gees, Kris could hardly raise a finger.
She let Nelly go on.
Amanda had gotten Kris's story out. The destroyed alien planet and the target avian species did not get lost entirely. Still, the Emperor of Greenfeld dispatched a fast cruiser squadron to carry the message that Admiral Krätz was recalled and should return immediately.
Those cruisers might or might not have carried the same orders from Geneva and Musashi. Those two governments chose to play it close to their respective vests.
Kris noted that Wardhaven sources never mentioned that she'd been shipped the Hellburners. That seemed like a very telling omission.
It was a fast trip to Wardhaven, but before Kris was even halfway there, it was clear that she'd been set up to take whatever fall was necessary.
After a while, Kris ignored the news and spent the time floating in the tub meditating on her future. What was the old saying?
No good deed goes unpunished.
They docked at High Wardhaven station quick and smooth. The crewwoman came around to decath Kris. “I'm sorry we didn't get to wash your uniform, but we don't carry so much as a clothes washer. The crew is all girls, and the uniform can get very informal.”
“No problem,” Kris said. “If Grampa doesn't give me time to shower and change clothes, he deserves what he gets.”
“Grampa?”
“My great-grandfather. King Raymond.”
“Some of the girls thought you might be that princess, but you looked so bedraggled when you boarded . . . well, you know.”
“It's been a rough stretch,” Kris admitted, adjusting her own gig line.
“There are some folks waiting for you pierside,” the woman advised Kris.
“I bet there are,” Kris said, and marched for the tiny quarterdeck.
And bounced her head off the overhead.
“Be careful. They only chose girls less than five-foot-two and 105 pounds.”
“Where do they recruit you, ballet school?”
“Several of us did take a swing at dance.”
Kris forced herself to leave the wonderfully relaxing small talk behind and finished her exit without further head bashing.
Three station carts awaited her: Two were full of Marines, and one had a Navy captain driving. He waved her to him. She went.
He took off as fast as the cart could go as soon as she sat down. He didn't even wait for her to buckle in.
“We've got to catch the next ferry dirtside. If we're late, they're under orders to hold it, but that will tell anyone watching that something special is going on.”
“Am I expected?”
“The media has been told you'll be arriving in two days. Three-gee acceleration all the way. Kid, you stink. Didn't they have a shower on that boat? That uniform's a disgrace.”
“At 4.25 gees, you don't shower,” Kris said. “And no, they don't have a clothes washer. You want to drop me by Nuu House. I'd love a shower and a clean set of whites.”
“Nuu House is surrounded by reporters. So is Main Navy. Your meeting was moved just an hour ago, when there may have been another leak.”
“It's nice to be popular,” Kris said with as much cheer as she could muster.