Kris Longknife: Defender (10 page)

“Mother, you cut it up to make clothes for me and Tina when we were small. I remember you telling us the story. We’ve handed them down, generation to generation.”

The old woman looked up. “I guess I forgot. Young woman, those pills you gave me don’t seem to be working as well as promised.”

“You haven’t been taking them as long as you were told,” Kris shot back.

“Well, however it goes, I must meet Raymond on the
Wasp
when he arrives.”

“No, Granny, you will meet Raymond here, on your own turf,” Kris said.

“I’m going up,” Granny Rita said with all the stubbornness of her years.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, Granny.”

Granny Rita settled into a chair and eyed Kris. “The easy way is?”

“You will not be allowed on any shuttle under my command. Last time I checked, they’re all under my command.”

“So what happened to Captain Drago being the
Wasp
’s skipper?” Granny demanded.

“You eavesdropped on our conversation. You tell me who gives the orders there.”

“But he’s the captain. So long as you’re in that dotted box, you can still marry Jack. By the way, how’d the vacation go?”

“Swimmingly. Often without swimming suits as you no doubt expected.”

“I think two of my kids were conceived there.”

“Too much information, Granny, and you are dodging the issue.”

“Okay. How do we do this the hard way?”

“We’ll have several liberty launches dropping down to pick up the crew. I can put a ship’s surgeon on one. He can give you a thorough physical to qualify you for space. You’ll fail, and then it’s official. Commodore Rita Nuu Longknife-whatever-else is grounded.”

“And Raymond isn’t grounded.”

“He’s been through several rejuvenation cycles. Not just some pills but the whole treatment, fix or replace anything as necessary.”

Rita leaned back in her chair and blew out a disagreeing breath. “You are not giving me the proper respect I deserve.”

Kris snapped right back. “You mean I should obey your whim and let you commit suicide by shuttle? Forget it. It ain’t gonna happen on my watch, and there
is
no other watch.”

“I’ll bet you don’t talk to King Raymond like this,” Granny pouted.

“Sorry, Granny Rita,” Jack said. “I’ve been stuck in meetings between those two. Subordinate is not Kris’s strong suit. Nowhere close.”

“If Grampa Ray had had his choice, I never would have been allowed to do the Voyage of Discovery, never would have spotted the alien invasion force, and never broken its back,” Kris said.

“Tell me something, young whippersnapper to a wise elder, what was the vote to launch eight battleships and four corvettes at that monster?”

Kris tossed the question to Jack and settled into a chair.

“Initially,” Jack said, “the admiral from Greenfeld, the Peterwald Empire, was all for collecting his four battleships and going home. Two other admirals from Musashi and the Helvetican Confederacy were willing to go along with Kris if she could come up with a decent plan. She did, and everyone followed it. At least until things came apart.”

“They always come apart,” Granny said, her voice years and light-years away.

“Yes, they always come apart,” Kris agreed. “Now, Granny Rita, there is a liberty launch holding at the landing for me and Jack. We have to be going. Feel free to do whatever you want to receive a visiting king, unless you can convince the Alwans to apply for membership in the United Societies, in which case he’ll be their king paying a visit. By the way, Grampa wanted to call his association of planets United Sentients, but his meeting with the Iteeche leaked out, and the name got changed. The Alwans might help him change it back.”

“The Alwans can’t agree on whether it’s day or night,” Granny Rita’s daughter said.

“Sadly true,” Granny agreed. “Okay, young lady, shoo. You have your irons in the fire. I’ll see what kind of fire I can light down here. You’re sure he’ll come down?”

“Absolutely,” Kris said.

“Then I got a party to plan, fit for a king.”

Kris was none too sure about the sound of that, but she had her own work cut out for her. She and Jack left. A car waited to hurry them to the fleet landing. They were the last aboard. The liberty launch started its takeoff run as they tightened their seat belts.

Kris
went straight to the bridge as fast as she could bounce off one wall and hit another. She need not have hurried. Captain Drago had nothing new to report.

“They are squawking the exact minimum required by law,” the skipper said. “Their name, their home port, and that they are U.S. warships.”

“All of them, even the big ones?” Kris asked.

“Yes, but who would put just twenty guns on a battlewagon that huge. Oh, they also have 5-inch secondaries. Our gravity anomaly detector says those huge ships are heavy, but no masses like thick armor. Kris, these ships don’t make any sense.”

“So they’re something new. Jack wondered if they were transports to take the entire colony home. Could they do that?”

“Not empty enough,” Senior Chief Beni said, shaking his head. “There’s a lot of heavy stuff
inside
those ships, but it’s not where an armored belt belongs.”

The bridge crew looked around at each other, but Kris only saw faces as blank as hers.

“Captain, does your Navy experience include anything like this?” Kris asked.

“No, but I asked Cookie what he thought. He said, back in the day when he was a boot ensign, General Longknife’s flag came into a system, just as silent as this. No signal at all. The local admiral and every commanding officer pushed the panic button. Said it was something like a no-notice showdown inspection. Every elephant was running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to make everything perfect.”

“An interesting mix of metaphors,” Kris said. “What happened?”

“The sector admiral ended up sacked, as well as the admirals commanding the Navy base and Navy yard. Several squadron and division commanders found themselves on the beach along with quite a few captains.”

Kris considered that for a long minute. Then shook her head. “We’ve got no admirals to sack and we’ve already been booted about as far as we can go and still be in the same galaxy. No. Something else is going on.”

She thought for a long moment as the bridge stayed silent. “
Prosperity.
What kind of a name is that for a warship?”

“There have been a few of them,” Nelly said. “Usually small auxiliaries.”

“Are you sure the
Enterprise
isn’t the
Free Enterprise
?” Kris asked slowly.

“You think your Grampa Al has something to do with those two?” Jack asked.

“Call it a hunch, but
Prosperity
and
Canopus
just don’t seem cut from the same cloth.”

“There have been several repair and depot ships named
Canopus
,” Nelly put in.

“And
Princess Royal
,” Kris said. “What kind of name is that?”

“The Royal Navy,” Nelly said, “I mean the British wet royal navy had a battlecruiser named
Princess Royal
at one of the greatest sea battles in history.”

Kris still scowled, but Jack was grinning.

“It would honor one of the fightingest captains in a long time,” he said.

Yesterday, Kris would have thrown him a kiss for that kind reflection of her. Maybe a lot more than a kiss. Today, she settled for a smile.

And turned her thoughts back to her problem. She needed more information. The ships were not talking.

“Nelly,” Kris said, “have you tried to contact those ships on Nelly Net?”

“No, Kris, all my kids are here.”

“All but Katsu-san’s Fumio-san.”

“He was on the
Sakura
,” Nelly said.

“Question, did it head back to Musashi direct or stop off at Wardhaven?”

“Wardhaven’s closer than Musashi,” Captain Drago said.

“Nelly, send to Katsu-san, ‘
Ohio, Katsu-san. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.
Did you help design these ships? The new large frigates look just like the fast and heavily armed war wagons I’d want in a fight. The big ones like the
Prosperity
are a bit too big, don’t you think?’ Send that Nelly to Fumio-san and let’s cross our fingers.”

Nelly started a timer. It looked like it would take a while for the message to get there and more for a reply to get back. Frustrated, Kris headed for her quarters for a shower and a change of uniform.

Abby arrived on the second liberty launch, fussing about having a good night’s sleep interrupted. Cara was none too happy. She’d found kids her own age delighted to find out what computer games were and someone willing to share with them.

Kris considered the joy of sharing a shower with Jack and, in her lone frustration, scrubbed herself pink. Abby had her dress whites, complete with orders and medals laid out. Getting dressed in zero gee was no fun, but Kris got herself fully and properly uniformed before heading back to the bridge, just as the timer was coming up on an hour.

“Nothing, so far,” Captain Drago reported.

Kris settled at her station at Weapons and put her feet in loops so that she could stand if she needed to talk to the engineer from Musashi.

The main screen continued to show the stars above, the green-and-blue planet below. A third liberty launch was on approach while the first back was already dropping down for another load of disappointed Sailors.

Then a portion of the main screen changed to the cheerful face of Kikuchi Katsu, the senior engineer of Mitsubishi Heavy Space Industry and designer of the
Wasp
.

“I am so glad to see you again, Princess-san. We hurried here as quickly as we could. The
Sakura
broke its long journey at Wardhaven to give your King Raymond the joyous news that his wife still lives.”

Kris would not have wanted to be a mouse in that room.

“But your brother had already done so much to get frigates under construction at Nuu Docks. First the
Intrepid
and
Fearless
, only a bit bigger than your
Wasp
. But they were also working on something to take the new 20-inch guns that several planets of your United Society had been testing but saw no reason to build. Believe me, now they do, and the other four ships are larger frigates with six 20-inchers forward and four aft.

“Your honorable brother persuaded my most honorable father and your most honorable grandfather to take the question of our competing patents to arbitration. Your king and your most honorable grandfather agreed to merge the two big frigates building in each of the three large battleship slips. I added more to them and turned two of them into the Prosperity class armed transports. I can make them back into two large frigates each, but they are also loaded with mining and factory equipment and people to run them. You will have both warships, freighters, and lunar factories when I am done. Also, the
Canopus
will be a space station for Alwa until the moon base sends up enough material to make a normal station. Then it, too, will become frigates and ships for mining.”

Kris could imagine the horse trading that had gone on. Still, while Kris and the Sailors and Marines had fought and died to keep the bastards from strip-mining the system, Grampa Al was stepping right in,
no need to thank me
, and grabbing for everything. Kris was grateful for the new warships but none too sure the colonials would care for the price they’d pay.

A voice was heard from offscreen, and Katsu-san turned. “I am talking to Princess-san Longknife. Why?”

A hand reached in to pull his computer, Fumio-san, from around his neck, and the signal was broken.

“How dare they manhandle one of my children!” Nelly exploded. “I expect a full apology from them, or they won’t be able to trust any computer on their ships.”

“Nelly, please calm down,” Kris asked her computer. “We’ve got a lot of problems here, and I don’t really think they will harm either Katsu-san or Fumio-san. They need them too much. Spinning one ship into several has got to take genius, and I don’t know anyone else who could even try it out here.”

“We’ll see,” Nelly said.

“Promise me you will take no action without telling me,” Kris insisted.

“All right,” Nelly said with a pout.

“Are any of you aware that I’ve been following this?” Granny Rita said, butting in.

Kris chuckled. “I am glad I can honestly say that we didn’t order you to be included in this, but I’m not at all sorry you heard.”

“Is my boy Alex a bit grabby?”

“A selfish miser might describe him quite well,” Abby said, joining them on the bridge.

“Granny Rita,” Kris said, jumping in before Abby’s attitude toward wealth could tie up the conversation for the next hour, “I remember hearing that you had some nanos that you used to leach minerals out of mountains and other sources. Did you just take the stuff, or did you share it with the Alwans? Maybe agree to pay royalties?”

“Let me get Ada in here, but I think we gave the Alwans thirty percent of what we took out back then. Now that we have to get more invasive when we go after minerals, and they like the stuff we make, they want forty percent for their share. Same for our heavy manufacturing. They don’t much care for our dams and smelters, but they want forty percent of what comes from them.”

Kris had heard one word that kind of made it hard to hear the rest of Granny Rita’s report. “You ‘gave’ the Alwans thirty percent. Was that documented in a treaty?”

“Honey, we weren’t even making paper in those days. As for the Alwans, a pledge made in front of two elders is binding. They still haven’t really gotten the idea of writing things down.”

“Granny Rita, the kind of men your little Alex likely sent on this expedition won’t give a second’s thought to anything not signed, notarized, and filed in court.”

“My father was a hardheaded businessman, but not hard-hearted,” Granny said.

Penny stepped forward. “Granny, Alex is a tough case. His dad never had much time for him. You went off to war and never came back. He buried his first wife before the blush was off the marriage. He doesn’t expect anything from the world but what he can grab with his own two hands and hold on to tight. He’s surrounded by a lot of equally hard cases. We think a few of them have even taken shots at Kris when she got in the way of what Alex wanted for Nuu Enterprises, Limited.”

“That wasn’t the way my dad, Ernie Nuu, ran the business,” Rita said, her voice gone hard.

“Granny,” Kris said, “I need you to get some sort of document that records the present forty percent or the previous thirty percent. I’m not expecting that they brought a judge to set up shop here, so we may have some leeway in interpreting this document, but I need something if I’m going to stop what I see coming at us at one and a half gees.”

“You think you can do something if I get a paper?”

“She’s a Longknife,” Jack put in. “Never count her out.”

“We’ll see what I can do,” Granny Rita said. “When’s Raymond due in?”

“Ten, twelve hours. I’ll probably tie him up for a few hours making my report.”

“Don’t count on tying Raymond up. If he’s all set to charge down here, the best you can do, kid, is run alongside him. Don’t get in front. His horns can be dangerous.”

“Trust me, Granny, we’ve butted heads and crossed horns before. I’ve learned when to butt back and when to run.”

“Good luck,” Granny Rita said.

“And good luck to you,” Princess Longknife said. Then she turned to Captain Drago. “Are we prepared to receive the king?”

“Not yet, but we’re on schedule to be there right on time. I’ve taken the liberty of messaging the
Fearless
and
Intrepid
. Both of them look to be about our own tonnage. I’ve sent them the design for spinning out a crossbeam and swinging us around each other. I never knew a skipper who didn’t like the idea of putting some weight on his crew. However, the
Canopus
is spinning itself out. I think it may arrive in orbit already prepared to serve as some sort of space station.”

Kris raised an eyebrow at that.

Senior Chief Beni at Sensors had the forward screen switch to the approaching fleet. It ran down the four leading frigates; two were significantly larger than the other two, then the two huge something-or-others, trailed by something that was going from huge to titanic.

It was growing longer as well as uniformly wider. “Yep, that’s starting to look like the tin can of a basic space station,” Kris said. Having blown one up and defended another, space stations and their structure were no stranger to her.

“Hey, I think they just popped their first dock out,” Jack said.

“They’ll need to balance things just right,” Drago said. “Three docks for us smaller frigates. Then some way to get those four big war wagons balanced without putting them too close to each other. As for those last two. God, I’d hate to have the job of balancing them. If they get out of sync, they could twist the whole station in knots.”

“I’d let those two swing around each other. Spin off a couple of their ships, and get smaller before I dared attach them to the station,” Kris said. “Captain Drago, please send to
Monarch
, in the clear and wide open enough for the
Canopus
to copy, ‘my respects and fealty to His Majesty. I respectfully suggest the
Prosperity
and
Enterprise
swing themselves bow to bow around each other while the rest of us dock on
Canopus
.’”

“Comm, send as requested,” the skipper ordered.

Kris settled down to watch the incoming ships for the time it would take a message to cross the space between them. This message would take more time. The
Monarch
’s communications folks would have to authenticate the message, then walk it to wherever King Raymond I was hanging out. That might add ten to twenty minutes to the elapse time between Kris’s sending and her getting a reply.

Of course, she had no idea where the legendary Ray Longknife hung out when he was pulling a no-notice showdown inspection. Or coming to call on his long-lost wife.

Kris spent time gnawing her lower lip, trying to figure out which she’d prefer to deal with, Ray Longknife, come full legend to inspect a command and see if it could be found wanting, or the family man, so out of practice, to face a woman who had been through a mill of horrors and successes, and was little like the woman he’d once known.