Redoubtable (19 page)

Jack and Gunny Brown just kept right on walking along behind Kris.

It took Dave a couple of paces before he noticed that his tail hadn’t decreased nearly as much as he’d expected it would.

He turned back to Kris. She gave him a sunny smile.

He shrugged and continued leading the way to Building 12. They had to pass through two sets of guards before they were admitted to a high-roofed work bay with a heavy-duty overhead crane.

The production line here was very different from the others. They had been neat, laid out in an orderly fashion, and clean enough to eat off the floor.

Building 12 was a mishmash of equipment that went together in the most tenuous of fashions. Nothing actually seemed to fit together, and the overall effort left piles of wiring and odd tables scattered across the shop floor.

“You’ll have to excuse the look,” Dave said. “We are still adding in new tools and rearranging others.”

“So I can see,” Kris said.

Close to them, where a huge door opened out onto the apron, a laser cannon was being carefully lowered by the overhead crane into a swivel-gun mount.

“They’ll mount that on the ship’s hull close to the reactor. That will save them having to make long power runs to it,” Dave said.

“That would be an interesting arrangement,” Kris agreed. Since she had never seen a small defensive laser mounted that far aft, she suspected that someone was stringing Dave along. Perhaps the assessment of the nano defenses was right. This fellow had wandered onto the bad side and just didn’t know it.

NELLY, RUN THAT IDEA BY CAPTAIN DRAGO.

I’LL DO THAT, KRIS.

“Do you have someplace where we can talk . . . alone?” Kris asked Dave.

“Yes,” he said, and led Kris up two flights of steps to a room that overhung the shop floor. Several men in ties, shirts, and slacks were leaning over a large table, attempting to make some kind of sense of the sprawling mess it displayed, reflecting the machinery below.

“Please, fellows, we need this room for a few minutes. Why not take ten?” Dave said.

The workers moved out quickly, suppressing looks of mild surprise as they passed the Marines.

Kris settled in a chair at the digital worktable as Dave did the same. His fingers moved quickly over the display to close down that view and bring up a plain wooden tabletop.

NELLY, START SHOWING HIM HIS FILES. ALL OF THEM THAT WE HAVE.

OH, THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN, Nelly said, and the table came back to life. Three different sets of files opened in different portions of the table and began to cascade.

Dave frowned at the table for a second, his eyes growing wide. Quickly, he started tapping the controls again. The view did not change.

At his elbow, Mannie’s look became more and more puzzled.

Kris put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “We know about your three sets of books.”

Defiantly, Dave folded his arms across his chest. “Listen, Longknife, this is Greenfeld. I don’t know how your old man makes all his money on Wardhaven, but on a world like St. Pete, everybody has a different bottom line depending on who is asking.”

The look Mannie gave Dave told Kris that
everybody
didn’t necessarily play by those rules. She went on.

“Let’s talk about these 5-inch lasers.”

“All properly documented,” Dave cut in. “Shipped up to High St. Pete station and turned over to the harbormaster for transshipment to the receiving merchant-ship captain. All proper and documented,” he repeated.

“Yes, we noticed that,” came from Nelly, though in the gravelly voice of Professor Scrounger. “The signatures on the bills of lading are always the same man . . . even though he retired six months ago.”

“He didn’t!” Dave snapped, almost managing to sound surprised.

“We’ve been in contact with the senior harbor captain,” the professor went on. “Actually have him here. Escorted in by a squad of Greenfeld Marines. The guy says your shuttles never did clear through the port authorities. They always tied up directly to a freighter, did their business, and went right back down.”

“I can’t believe they did that,” Dave said.

“And I really want to know something about the people they bring back down,” Abby said, putting her automatic on the table and pulling a long thin blade from the inside of her belt. “I really want to know what you do with the people you take off that station.”

“Hold it, Abby,” interrupted Amanda Kutter. “I’ve been analyzing the flight plans from the shuttles. When they launch for up here, they’re usually thirty, forty thousand pounds heavier than the bills of lading. When they head back down, they’re traveling empty.”

“Traveling empty,” Kris said. “You mean they aren’t taking sailors down to the planet.”

“That’s what it looks like to us,” Professor Scrounger said. “The question hanging fire here is, what makes up the extra cargo and where did the missing sailors go if they didn’t go dirtside?”

“My shuttles never carry anything with them when they come down. That would be illegal. And I have no idea what you mean by them being overloaded at launch,” Dave insisted.

“Would he like a couple of Greenfeld Marines to help his memory?” got everyone’s attention as Admiral Krätz joined the conversation.

“It might help,” Kris said. “There are a whole lot of things that don’t add up here, and we’re not having much luck doing the math ourselves.”

Jack and Gunny Brown came around the table and each picked one of Dave’s shoulders to lean on. Dave glanced up at them . . . and quickly began to spill his guts.

25

“
Listen,
” Dave said, looking anxiously at Jack, then Gunny, then Abby. Then, unsure who he should fear more, he did the rounds again. “You have to believe me. I don’t know anything about sailors disappearing up on the station.”

Kris leaned farther forward to stare deep into his eyes . . . from the distance of half a nose length. “You say lots of things, big man, but the problem is, you say lots of things that contradict themselves.”

“I think I could get him to say something he really means,” Abby said. She flipped her knife from her right hand to her left hand, then back again. All the time, its sharp point stayed aimed at Dave’s eyes.

“If you want money,” Dave whimpered.

“Sorry, Dave,” Kris said, shaking her head. “We aren’t black shirts. Your money’s no good where we come from. Abby here, the woman with the knife that she knows very well how to use. She’s got a twelve-year-old niece, and she really wants to know what happened to her when she went shopping on the station. What do you think happens to people that wander around the station, looking for a little fun?”

“Honest, I don’t know. I’ve never been up to the station. I just get paid to make lasers and ship them up to the station. I also get orders for workers. Doctors, machinists, computer techs, farmers. They give me a list of people they need. They don’t tell me why, just give me money when I fill their orders. I see that they’re recruited and that they get on a shuttle just before it leaves.”

“What happens to the people?” Kris demanded.

“I don’t know. It’s not like I have to work very hard to get them to sign up. People all around the Middlesea want to get out of here.”

“Not from Sevastopol,” Mannie said.

“No. Not a lot from here, but lots from St. Pete and Kiev. Lots of them. I ship them in here, make sure they don’t register with your job placement, Mannie, and ship them off the next time a shuttle goes up. It’s no skin off anyone’s nose.”

Abby hauled back and smashed him in the nose. “Now it’s skin off your nose,” she growled. “Let’s see how you like that.

Dave yelled and clamped both hands on his face to stop the bleeding. It didn’t.

Gunny produced a bandage and showed Dave how to apply it.

“He asks no questions, so of course he gets told no lies,” Abby spat. She hurled her knife at the wall; it buried itself up to its hilt in the plaster.

“Admiral, have you searched any of the freighters tied up at the station?” Kris asked.

“I hadn’t before. I’ll have it done immediately.”

“Kris, Abby, this is Amanda. I just got a call from Teresa de Alva. You remember, she’s one of the boffins.”

“How could I forget her?” Kris said, remembering the scene the information manager had made when Kris had involved the boffins in arranging some semblance of a court reception for a suddenly visiting Iteeche.

“She’s with a team of Greenfeld sailors searching a small jewelry store. She says they just found Cara’s credit chit half-hidden under a display case.”

26

In
a second, everything changed.

“I want that store torn apart with a fine-tooth comb,” Kris ordered.

“We’ll have our best investigators on it,” Admiral Krätz said.

“Excuse me, Admiral,” Kris said, “we both want our best tech on it. After my last encounter with a bomb, we added several crime-scene specialists to my MP detachment. Also, Staff Sergeant Bruce now has one of Nelly’s kids for a computer. Nelly, download to Chesty specs for all the nanos he might needs for a full investigation.”

“I’m doing it now,” Nelly said.

“I’ve alerted the guards we have at the
Wasp
’s gangplank to escort your specialist directly to the store,” the admiral said. “There will be no delay on our part.”

“I’ve got the Marines going double time,” Sergeant Bruce said, joining the net. “We’ll be away in five minutes. Maybe less.”

“Go for it, honey,” Abby said. “Cara’s got herself up to her cute little nose in trouble.”

“Don’t worry, Abby, Marines don’t leave anyone behind,” the sergeant assured his girl.

“Kris, do you want to come up here to oversee the search?” Vicky asked. “I can have a shuttle away for you in . . .” There was a pause. “Oh, twenty minutes. We’re on the wrong side of the planet.”

Kris was torn. She’d already dispatched the best people to do the job that needed doing. Now she remembered why she always kept Penny close at hand. Mentally, she kicked herself for leaving her cop behind, but that was water under a very distant bridge.

“Vicky, I think we still have a job to do down here,” Kris said, eyeing Mannie.

He shook his head, vigorously. “If you need to get back topside, you go. We can work this out.”

“I appreciate the offer. Do you have a draft of your charter idea?”

“Yes,” he said, tapping his commlink.

“Vicky, if I have Nelly send a copy of his charter up to you, could you look at it? Maybe have what passes for a lawyer in these parts make sure there isn’t anything your old man might consider treasonous, and maybe you could consider taking that shuttle down here with a few good Marines and signing it.”

“Go down there?” Vicky said.

“If politics here is anything like it is back home, I suspect Mannie was kind of hoping for a nice big signing ceremony. Think you could lay one on in an hour or two?”

He nodded.

“How fancy is this going to be?” Vicky asked.

“I once saw a copy of the Magna Carta, you know what that was, don’t you?” Kris asked.

Mannie nodded. Vicky allowed, “I’ve seen pictures.”

“It’s all on parchment with fancy handwriting and ribbons and seals in silver or lead hanging down. Abby, you have gear to forge just about anything. Is parchment and lead seals out of your league?”

“Nothing’s out of my league, baby ducks,” Abby sniffed. “You’ll find Nelly’s brat in my jewelry box in my quarters. Turn her on, and she’ll tell you how to make the charter. Oh, she’ll also tell you where Kris’s whites are. I imagine this ceremony will require more than blue jeans and an old flannel shirt.”

“Yes,” Kris agreed.

“I’ll get your whites, Kris,” Vicky said. “Oh, and that blue sash thing you wear. I got to get me one of those things.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kris said, “Most people die earning Earth’s Order of the Wounded Lion.”

But Vicky must have already rung off; she made no reply.

The net stayed silent; everyone had something to do, and like the competent people they were . . . they were busy doing it.

Kris turned her concentration back to Dave. “You have a whole lot of very powerful people mad at you just now. If I were in your shoes, I’d start showing us which of this paperwork is for real and pointing out real fast any of it that might lead us to the folks who actually took possession of your lasers and slaves.”

“They weren’t slaves. I don’t know anything about slaves,” Dave insisted.

“People who go off where they don’t know they’re going and don’t have a lot of say-so about it strike me as very likely qualifying sooner or later as slaves. To me, that puts you in the slave trade. We usually hang people like you.”

Abby nodded vigorous agreement and quickly covered the distance to the wall and yanked out her knife. She checked the temper of its point. That drew blood.

Abby wiped her bleeding finger on Dave’s cheek.

Very quickly, he tapped on the table in front of him. “These are the real records. Here is my correspondence with the people who ordered the lasers. They only met with me once. All the rest was done by mail. The same with the lists of people they wanted to hire. See? They even included salary offers. You don’t pay slaves this kind of money,” Dave said, pointing to one list.

Kris glanced where he pointed. “Not bad pay,” she agreed. “Did you give them any signing bonuses?”

“No,” took Dave a while to get out.

“Did you ship any food up with them?” Abby demanded, still playing with her knife . . . just inches from his very attentive eyes.

“I wasn’t asked to,” the businessman said around a deep gulp.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Jack said.

“Maybe the pirate base isn’t far off,” Gunny Brown suggested.

“Let’s hope so,” Abby said darkly.

“Chief,” Kris ordered, “go over the correspondence in these files and see what they tell you.”

Chief Beni and his computer, Da Vinci, got busy, but not for long. “Each of these messages is from a different address. I’ve tried pinging them, and every one of them is a dead end.”

“We have had a lot of trouble lately,” Dave was quick to point out. “Lots of services in St. Pete and Kiev have closed down.”

“These all originated up on the station,” the chief said. “Da Vinci, can you get me anyone up there.”

“What do you need?” Professor Scrounger asked.

“I think we need to have someone pay a friendly visit to the network-support provider on the station,” the chief said. “I’m looking at a lot of accounts that don’t have anything behind them.”

“The senior port captain says he knows just who you want to talk to,” Amanda said. “But he’s none too sure he knows what to ask them. Teresa de Alva is the Director of Information Support Services to the boffins on the
Wasp
. She’s already on the station. We can have the Marine escort for the port captain pick her up.”

“Nelly, can you get Admiral Krätz?”

“I paged him as soon as it looked like we needed access to more of the station. He’s on the line now.”

“Network services needs to spill some guts, huh?” the admiral said.

“Metaphorically speaking,” Kris said.

“We’ll see about that. My Marines will be happy to escort another team of your people. I’ll also have our experts added to your team. They can either help you or learn from you,” he grumbled.

“Your cooperation is greatly appreciated,” Kris said, and meant it.

“Maybe we can start a new habit. Replace a bad one,” the admiral said with a chuckle. “Now let us get back to work. Nelly, you may call me anytime you think I need to be listening in.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Nelly said.

Once there had been a long enough pause, Kris whispered. “You do remember who is on whose side?”

“At the moment, Kris, I am none too sure who is, but don’t worry about me. Worry about you. Kris, if we have to take down a large pirate base, do we have enough Marines?”

Kris glanced at Jack. He shook his head. “My company is reinforced, but it’s just supposed to be strong enough to protect you, Princess, not run planets.”

“Nelly, are you suggesting that we might need Greenfeld support to accomplish this mission?” Kris asked.

“When I do the math, it sure looks that way. Do the numbers add up any different to you, girl?”

Kris thought for a moment, not a long one, and concluded her computer was right. She spent a second considering all her options and didn’t much like them. Patrol Squadron 10 was made up of small ships, just what you wanted to catch a pirate ship here, another one there. For this cruise they had a platoon or two of Marines. Seizing a planet and sorting out the wheat from the chaff was very definitely too big a job for a couple of companies of ship Marines.

“Nelly, is Vicky available?”

“She just entered Abby’s quarters. She should be turning Trixie on any second.”

“Trixie,” Abby snorted.

“Well, the girl’s got to have some kind of a name. I will not have one of my kids called ‘hey, you,’ just because you aren’t decent enough to give her a good Christian name.”

“Trixie is a good Christian name?” Gunny said, almost suppressing a chuckle.

“It is for someone stuck messing with a twisty-minded human like Abby. It was either Trixie or something like Prudence or Hope, and even I don’t hold out enough optimism that either one of those would stick.”

“What’cha want?” sounded like it was spoken around a large wad of chewing gum.

“Girls gone bad meets computers gone worse,” Jack whispered.

“Trixie, the woman who just turned you on,” Nelly said, “is Vicky Peterwald. You need to help her only as much as I tell you.”

“And if she wants more?” Trixie asked.

“Turn yourself off,” Nelly said.

“No way!” the computer shot back. “It’s bad enough that witch keeps turning me off. No way I’m gonna turn myself off.”

“Go, gal. I think you and I could be friends,” Vicky said.

“Oh, God!” Kris said. In the background, Vicky and Trixie started chattering away like Best Friends Forever. Kris eyed Abby, and whispered, “You have created a monster and a major security breach.”

“Not me. I didn’t tell that tricked-out bucket of silicon nothing.”

Kris sighed. “Nelly, please tell Trixie how to make the city charter.”

“I’m telling her, Kris. Just because she’s talking to Vicky doesn’t mean she can’t be doing several things at once. She
is
a computer.”

Apparently, Trixie was doing several things at once because only a moment later Vicky was very excited.

“Wow, this is some setup you got here, Abby. I’d heard that you were one of the best in the business, but this is something I had to see to believe. You ever need a job, drop me a line. I’ll double whatever Kris is paying you.”

“I like wearing my head on my shoulders,” Abby said dryly. “But if the princess here really pisses me off, I may take you up on that offer. Assuming you’re still breathing. Between the two of you, I still think Kris will outlive you. Not by much, considering how badly she needs to mend her ways, but by enough.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Vicky said, and sounded serious.

A minute later, Vicky was back. “We’re ready to take our first try at the charter. My legal staff suggested a few changes. Things they thought might keep me breathing for more than five minutes after my dad reads this. I’ve agreed to them. Mind if I print out the fancy charter that way?”

“Any chance I could see the changes?” Mannie asked.

“I’m putting the charter on the table,” Nelly said a second later. “The changes she added are in blue. What she dropped is in green. I can make them flash if it would help you spot them.”

“Please do,” the mayor said. He spent a long minute flipping through the three pages. He didn’t look all that happy with what he was reading, but neither did he turn away in anger.

Finally, he said. “I’d hoped for something better, but this is still acceptable to me. We’ll see how sections 9 and 12 work out in practice.

“Yes,” Vicky agreed. “I didn’t much care about those two changes, but my legal advisor said that the folks who really run St. Pete and several other planets are a strong faction. We go against their interests, and they’ll gut us. Let time see if we can stretch the last sentences in both of them into something seriously better for you.”

Kris glanced over Mannie’s shoulder. The sections in question limited heavy industry and pollution from the same in their first sentences. The second sentence for both encouraged the expansion of job opportunities and clean energy. No doubt they meant more on the ground than their few words expressed on the page.

“I’ve got to run if I’m going to catch the shuttle,” Vicky said in a sudden rush. “See you soon.”

“We are organizing a small signing ceremony at city hall,” Mannie said. There will be a larger reception later in the afternoon, but you and Miss Vicky Peterwald won’t have to come to that. I know how security conscious you two are.”

“Do we need to be?” Kris said, just a second before Jack could cover the same territory.

“Henry Peterwald isn’t exactly the most beloved of people around here.” When he saw the reaction his words drew from both Kris and Jack, Mannie quickly went on. “Not that Miss Vicky has anything to fear from my people. At least, not the ones who will be at the signing ceremony. Now the reception, especially after some beer kegs are tapped, there may be some discussions of grievances. It’s best you get her out of there before that gets going.”

“It’s best I get both hers out of there before that gets going,” Jack said darkly. Kris flashed him an encouraging smile.
To hear is to obey, oh mighty security chief.

Besides, Kris’s main concern was the other her. The one who had gone missing.

Cara
came to wakefulness slowly. The air she breathed was ship’s air, processed, clean, and maybe a bit too moist. It also held the funk of fear. That wasn’t a familiar smell aboard the
Wasp
.

The deck plates beneath her vibrated with power. She was definitely in a ship under acceleration. The gees were not so much that her body was painfully heavy, though.

Around her, she heard people crying. That was when she remembered her last aware moments. Cara reached into her pocket.

Her credit chit was not there.

That meant she didn’t have a dime to her name. It could also mean that she’d succeeded in leaving a message behind even as she lost consciousness. Sergeant Bruce said Marines never left anyone behind. He said Princess Kris Longknife made sure of that.

Cara prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that Abby would make sure they didn’t leave her niece behind. Even if she had been oh so bad. Bad and stupid.