Daring (9 page)

“Will the contents of this ship be shared with our home governments?” Admiral Kōta asked.

The politician in Kris's upbringing spotted the hot button in that question, but the fleet leader in her just shrugged. “I'm sending this cargo back to human space. Then I plan to continue my voyage of discovery. I expect to have more on my mind than who gets what of this mess.”

The Navy officers drifted up to a window that looked into an isolated room organized like an operating center. On one table a lone body was strapped down and laid out. Its chest had been opened and its organs removed. They now floated in glass jars.

“They've got everything we've got,” Kris said. “Different arrangement. Our guess is that they started walking upright about six million years ago, too. Give or take a few months,” she half joked.

“Can we go in?” Admiral Krätz's head doctor asked.

Kris nodded. “We're using level-three biohazard suits.”

The three doctors who had accompanied their admirals so far took their leave and headed into the operating room.

“Have you run a DNA check?” Admiral Channing asked.

“Yes,” Kris said. “They have DNA, but their base molecules are different from ours. My biologists are very excited. And no, they doubt there can ever be any interbreeding. Even if our plumbing can be made to rendezvous, the genetics just aren't going to let it happen.”

“Kris, we need to talk,” Admiral Krätz said, waving his hand, “about all of this. Who gets what? Where do we go from here?”

“Yes, we need to talk,” the other two admirals agreed.

“Well, sirs, we have gravity on the
Wasp.
May I invite you to the Forward Lounge?”

12

Kris was halfway back to the
Wasp
before she noticed that it wasn't alone. A new courier ship hung just off where it swung in space with the
Intrepid
. A large shuttle from the
Wasp
was just departing from the stranger and heading back to Kris's ship.

“Nelly, get me Captain Drago.”

“I got him, Kris.”

“Hello, Your Highness,” he said cheerfully. “I was expecting a call from you.”

“What's a strange ship doing off our bow?”

“There's nothing strange about the
Sandpiper
. She's here to replace the
Mercury
. The king thought we might need another courier boat.

“What'd it bring?”

“Who said it brought anything?”

“Admiral Crossie would not pay for a fourth courier ship if it didn't carry something twisted and sneaky and, I don't know, special for him.”

“See for yourself. Longboat 2 will be reeled in right after you.”

Kris was seated right behind the two bosun's mates running the show. She watched over their shoulders as they attempted the new maneuver it took to land on the
Wasp
. Usually when a ship was in orbit, a longboat just nestled into a docking bay. But a ship wasn't usually doing flips with another ship while both of them zipped along in orbit.

Now they did.

As it turned out, it wasn't all that hard.

To watch.

The
Wasp
let out a long line with a loop at the end.

The longboat snagged the loop with a hook it now dropped from its nose. The hook was retracted once it had the loop solidly in hand.

Then the
Wasp
reeled in the longboat.

Easy.

If you didn't have to do it yourself. Though neither of the youngsters piloting the boat said a word of complaint, Kris noticed both of them wiping sweat from their brows.

“Well done,” she told them.

“Piece of cake, Commander,” the senior of them said.

Kris waited while the admirals exited her launch. They were admirals, and she was a lieutenant commander, so seniors go first even if it is your flagship and you are a princess. Once aboard, she had Penny lead them to the Forward Lounge while she waited to see what surprise the unholy trinity had popped on her.

The next longboat docked with no more difficulty than the last. Some people were spending a lot of time in the simulator, no doubt. It took a while for the hatch to open, but when it did, who should clop out but Ron, Kris's favorite Iteeche.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, unsure whether to offer a hand to shake or see if she could actually manage a hug for something with four arms, four legs, and a whole lot of elbows and knees.

She did get both her arms around the trunk of her friend though it was a bit of a problem bending over his four-jointed pelvis. An Iteeche was not like the human's mythological centaur. His body trunk rose from somewhere closer to his center of gravity, as befits a creature that swam for a lot longer in the sea and owed its ancestry more to something like a squid than to a quadrupedal land critter.

Ron hugged back, doing something that almost sounded like a human laugh.

“I could ask what you are doing here,” he said through the translator Kris had given him the last time he'd dropped by human space.

“I'm hunting for whatever's eating up your scout ships,” Kris said.

“You are a far distance from where they went and did not return.”

“Well, yes. We call incidents like exploding scout ships a hot datum. They draw attention. We don't want to draw any more attention to those spots. Anyone who comes nosing around them might keep nosing and bump into you. I want to come at them from the other way around and draw their attention this way.”

“You humans are very twisty in your minds. I think I like that.”

“Well, you arrived just as I and some of the fellow voyagers were about to hash over something that happened to us in this system.”

“Nothing bad I hope.”

“It's me you're talking to, Ron. I'm a Longknife. Bad things happen around Longknifes.”

“The way they do around Chap'sum'We,” he said, giving the ancient name of those who chose his chooser.

He paused to introduce Kris to those who had come with him. Teddon'sum'Lee Kris already knew. He still wore the gray and gold of the Imperial Iteeche Navy. The other wore black and red. Kris missed his name on the first fly, but Nelly promised that she caught it. He was from the Imperial Iteeche Army.

“No green-and-white advisors this time?” Kris asked.

“I do not speak for the Emperor,” Ron said. “Officially, I and my associates are still on an Iteeche scout ship. Depending on the outcome of this voyage, we will be welcomed with praise, or the Cup of Apology.”

Kris knew more about the Iteeche than any human alive, which was not saying a lot. However, after spending a long two months hiding Ron in human space, she did know that the Cup of Apology was filled with a slow-acting and painful poison.

Apparently, the aliens Kris had just witnessed blowing themselves to bits weren't the only ones operating in the “do or die” mode.

“We are meeting in the Forward Lounge. You should feel right at home.”

Ron and Ted nodded agreement in their strange, four-armed way. The Army officer was busy using all four of his eyes in an effort to catch everything going on within sight. He'd get over that in time.

Kris led off.

She was halfway to the lounge when Captain Drago fell in with her party.

“Ron, we have your quarters waiting for you. I see there are only three of you now. They should be more roomy this trip.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Ron said.

“I thought you off-loaded the Iteeche's containers,” Kris said.

“No. Admiral Crossenshield suggested that I shouldn't. He also suggested that I not mention that fact to you. He said something about surprises being good for Longknifes. Every once in a while.”

“I thought you were the captain of
my
ship.”

“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I am. You must allow me that other one in a hundred, Princess. It is not easy to serve two masters.”

“Or three or four,” Kris added, darkly.

“I am just a humble ship captain. You are the damn Longknife, Your Highness.”

Since they were at the hatch to the Forward Lounge, Kris let the captain get the last word in.

With three admirals already in the Forward Lounge, Kris didn't rate an “Attention on Deck.” Still, as she and her Iteeche friend entered the lounge, all conversation came to a roaring halt. The room had pretty much arranged itself as it had the first meeting. Kris's PatRon 10 officers held the ground nearest the bar . . . which was doing a fair business tonight. The Imperials were as far from the Royals as they could be, and the Helviticans and Musashi occupied the neutral middle. Jack had saved her the table nearest to the forward screen.

Kris headed for it, the Iteeche right behind her.

All hands, of the human variety, took this first opportunity in eighty years to get an eyeful of their previous mortal enemy. While Ron and Ted kept their eyes straight ahead, the poor Army officer looked like he wanted to bolt. His head swiveled through the full 270 that it could. What with his four eyes, that pretty much covered everything from front to back.

Halfway to her table, Kris chose to have mercy on her fellow sailors. “Admirals, ladies, gentlemen, may I introduce the Imperial Representative Ron'sum'Pin'sum'We qu Chap'sum'We. He's kind enough to answer to Ron. He is the reason we are making this voyage of discovery. I'm glad he could join us.”

The admirals came forward to be formally introduced. All of them managed not to wince as they shook the hand Ron offered them. Vicky also presented herself. She did a bit of a curtsy and winked at Kris.

“Kris insisted she had not met you or anyone of your species. I'm glad you've made her an honest woman.”

“I can understand her, ah, subterfuge,” Ron said with a bit of a bow. “The powers that be make great demands on their messengers.”

“Does he have a sense of humor?” Vicky asked.

“Oh, yes,” Kris said. “It just takes a while for it to come out.”

Vicky pursed her lips in some doubt.

Kris got to the front of the room where Jack, Penny, Abby, and the colonel awaited her. Three of the barkeeps arrived, pushing the heavily carpeted arrangements that had served the tall Iteeche as chairs during their last visits to the Forward Lounge. Kris gave the thoughtful help a thankful smile.

The amenities finished, Kris turned to face a roomful of officers, most of whom outranked her and the majority of whom came from associations that wanted nothing to do with Grampa Ray's United whatever until Crossie sent them his little home video of that recent family get-together between Grampa Ray, Trouble, and the “boy” Kris had brought home to dinner.

Kris cleared her throat. “I wasn't sure how to start this briefing. Most of you have seen the report of what happened. I doubt you want me to go over it again. However, now that we have been joined by Ron, the Iteeche who first brought us the news that there was something powerful out here in the galaxy that was shooting first and not bothering to ask questions, I think we should start with a review of what I did on my summer vacation.”

That drew a dry chuckle from the humans. Ron gave her a blank stare. Since he gave it to her with four eyes, it was something to behold.

“Nelly, roll the video take,” Kris said.

The screen behind her changed. The sight of the
Intrepid
, hooked to a pole a couple of thousand meters long, swinging against a star field with a moon and gas giant occasionally coming into view vanished. Filling the screen in its place was a view centered on the moon's hot spot, a ship rising from it.

It took five minutes to go through the executive summary. Now it had Penny's voice-over to explain what was happening to anyone whose eyes balked at admitting what they saw.

“I am sorry, Kris,” Ron said into the silence at the end of it. “I know you do not enjoy violence.”

“She didn't have any choice,” Admiral Kōta said before Kris could.

“I find myself wondering,” Kris said. “While, admittedly, everyone may not be as big a fan of talking as I am. Still, it's hard to believe anyone would prefer a knock-down, drag-out firefight to a bit of calm, quiet conversation. The actions of the captain of this ship leave me groping for an explanation.” She paused before going on.

“We've completed a biological scan of all the bodies. Every one of them shares similar genetic material. It appears that this ship was crewed by a family or clan. What would cause a grandfather/captain to consign his own children and grandkids to the cold vacuum of space?”

Around Kris, several in the room groaned. Lots of heads shook.

“I've got to file some kind of report on this encounter. I'm struggling to get my mind around it. To have something to say. My first guess is that whoever we are dealing with here really hates or is terrified of the strange. They could be the most xenophobic population of conquer-or-die types we've ever dreamed of. Worse than our worst fictional imaginings. There is, of course, a second possibility.”

“What worse option could a Longknife come up with?” Admiral Channing of the businesslike Helviticans asked.

“We've never seen a ship like the one they had,” Kris said, having Nelly flash back on the screen the best picture they had of the alien ship. “I'm unaware of any ships in human or Iteeche space that are strung together from conjoined spheres.”

Many in the room nodded.

“Could there be someone else out here? Someone who builds spaceships very much similar to the way we build ours? Could that someone be so nasty that our grandfather here did not hesitate for a moment to kill his beloved kids and grandkids rather than risk the chance of them falling under their control?”