Redoubtable (2 page)

“If you go to infrared,” Kris’s computer suggested, and the screen changed colors as the examination slipped from the visual spectrum to heat, “you can just make out lines running across the balloot that don’t have quite the same temperature as the fabric behind them. They are slightly colder than the balloot and the reaction mass in it.”

“I was about to show her that,” the chief said.

“I know you were,” Kris said. The chief and Nelly were both experts in sensors. And often in competition.

Sometimes that was good.

Sometimes.

“There’s also a hint of the lines on radar,” the chief added. “When you combine the hints on visual . . .”

“And infrared . . .” Nelly cut in.

“And radar,” the chief finished, hands flying over his board, “you get the same set of lines, and they come through better.”

Now the balloot was clearly crisscrossed.

“Are they reinforcements to the fabric?” Kris asked.

“None of the balloots from any company in human space have them,” Nelly said.

“On a close pass to a gas giant, anything like that would disrupt the flow of plasma. They’d burn off. Might even burn up the balloot,” the chief added.

“So they were put on after the pass. Why?”

“Commander, your guess is as good as mine,” the chief admitted. Nelly seconded the human opinion with her silence.

Which left Kris staring at one lonely bit of information, which, balanced against the huge silence from all other sources, did not make her happy.

At the end of her four-hour watch, Kris knew nothing more than she had when she started. As Princess Kris Longknife, commander of Patrol Squadron 10, that really bothered her.

However, as Officer of the Deck, a quiet watch was a good watch. As Kris was relieved at 0400, she tried to congratulate herself on having successfully stood a watch without starting a war or even firing a single shot.

It was getting to be a very pleasant habit.

2

Kris
was in the wardroom later that morning at 0730. She spotted Penny, her intel lieutenant, at an empty table and joined her.

“How was your watch?” Penny asked.

“Uneventful,” Kris said.

“Unusual,” Penny answered.

“I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. No one tries to kill me. I try to kill no one. Did you have a chance to look at those news accounts I sent you yesterday?”

Penny gave Kris a wary eye. “Who is this Winston Spencer and why is he sending you news feed?”

“He’s written some good stories from the Navy perspective. Digs deep, so he usually gets more about us right than he gets wrong. You remember that news dump my brother, Honovi, gave us last time we were at Wardhaven that pretty much showed me that being out here on the Rim left me totally in the dark about what was happening back home? I’d prefer not to give my brother that kind of a club to beat me with. So I asked Spencer to send me stuff he found interesting. Admiral Santiago recommended him.”

Penny continued to eye Kris, as if weighing the words . . . and not finding enough truth in them. She had a lot of experience in the last three years listening to Kris tell the truth, or a small part of the truth, or a whole lot of bunk with a little bit of truth added in for spice.

Today, she made a face. “I guess I’ll have to settle for that until you let me in on the whole story.”

“What’s the matter? Doesn’t it at least sound plausible?”

“Oh, it sounds plausible. It might even be right. I just have this strange itch between my shoulder blades. Maybe my bra’s too tight. Then again, I’m working for a Longknife. It could mean blood and gore. I’ll just have to wait and see.”

Since treason wasn’t the kind of thing you discussed over breakfast in the wardroom of a commissioned warship, Kris changed the topic. “Have you found out anything about Kaskatos?”

“Not. A. Thing. I sent out requests for any data to both Greenfeld and Wardhaven sources. I actually got a couple of answers from Greenfeld planets nearby. All were negative. No responses at all from our own nearest planets. It’s clear that the official databases are null. What I wonder about is if a bit of informal snooping around would be just as fruitless?”

“Are you suggesting we need to build up our own contacts on the ground around here?”

“It would be nice to have some Baker Street Irregulars to snoop around corners for what the officials don’t know,” Penny said. “You do know who the Baker Street Irregulars are?”

“I read the required classics in school,” Kris admitted.

“My dad introduced me to Sherlock Holmes when I was just starting to read. I loved them.”

Kris changed the topic. “You got replies from Greenfeld officials?”

“Yes. They know we’re out here, and, at least to the extent that they are answering my search requests, they are cooperating.”

“I wonder how long before a couple of Greenfeld cruisers come looking for us?”

“Depends on whether any can be spared from using their sailors to patrol the streets of this planet or that one,” Captain Jack Montoya of the Wardhaven Royal Marines said as he slid into the chair next to Kris. He arranged his breakfast plate, attacked his eggs and bacon, and waited for Kris to comment.

“So far, we’ve had this space to ourselves,” Kris said.

“Not even so much as a warning to get out of their neck of the woods?” Jack asked.

Penny shook her head. “Not a peep. All the other ships of PatRon 10 have the same report. An occasional merchant ship, usually glad to see us out here, but no sightings of the Greenfeld fleet. Not so much as a tug.”

Jack shook his head. “If this were my stomping grounds, I’d be out here marking my territory with something. Things must be really bad inside the fraternal order of Peterwald good buddies to have the whole fleet tied up.”

“I think the Navy is the only power that the Peterwalds trust to enforce their sway over their planets,” Kris said. “Henry Peterwald got really lucky when he sent his daughter out to the fleet for an education.”

That Kris had provided a bit of that education the rest of the table was kind enough not to comment upon.

“Penny, are you getting anything more specific from inside the Greenfeld Empire? We all know it’s a mess, but . . .” Kris trailed off. She knew so little that she didn’t even know how to talk about how little she knew.

“Sorry, Your Highness, but this little minion is deep down a dungeon’s coal bin surrounded by black cats at midnight. Newspapers never have been all that trustworthy in Peterwald territory, and what with no one sure who’s going to come out on top, you can’t blame the media for not really wanting to stick their fingers into the ongoing catfights. Maybe Abby knows something from her informal sources?”

Abby, Kris’s maid, settled at Kris’s other elbow, her twelve-year-old niece right next to her. Abby really
was
a maid. Very highly trained and all. The problem was that she wasn’t
just
a maid.

On Earth, where Abby had started maiding, personal help was expected to do other things . . . like shoot back when their Ladies got shot at. Abby got quite good at that. She also found out from others of the help that she could make extra money selling information to the gossip media. Abby got very good at that, too.

Working for Kris Longknife gave Abby plenty of chances to excel at all of her many skills.

Usually.

“Why do I hear you people taking my name in vain?” Abby said. She normally got up on the wrong side of the bed, and today looked to be no exception.

Kris repeated the question. Abby was shaking her head before Kris finished.

“No way, nohow am I wasting my hard-earned money on the rumors coming out of the Greenfeld Alliance. Best intel the info marketeers have even they admit is C-4. Secondhand idle rumors picked up by shady characters with only a passing acquaintance with the truth and that have dogs of their own in the fight. Princess, if you want me to waste your money on that untreated sewage, I’ll do it, but you’d be better served spending it on some trashy suspense novel.”

Colonel Cortez took this moment to join the breakfast club. He surveyed the growing silence with raised eyebrow. “My, aren’t we quiet today.”

“Not much going on,” Penny said.

“Good. Would now be a good time for me to put in again for a transfer out of the princess’s merry band of optimists to someplace safe and sane . . . like a Royal prison?”

Kris shook her head as she stood up. “Okay, boys and girls. Just because we’ve run into so many dead ends that it’s starting to look like a holiday, doesn’t mean that it is. Keep your eyes peeled. Our vacation will be over when you least expect it.”

3

Kris’s
vacation ended abruptly next morning.

She had paused outside the bridge coaming to let a tiny bit of nausea pass. This spell was the shortest she remembered, and in a moment she expected to march across the bridge to her station, swinging her cane with a jaunty air.

All she needed was a few seconds’ rest.

The speaker on the bridge crackled to life. “Freighter
Mary Ellen Carter
, vent your reactor to space and prepare to be boarded. Do this our way, and no one gets hurt. If you don’t, we’ll kill you all.”

Captain Drago’s response was not at all appropriate for pirate ears . . . or princess’s either. The captain vented a long string of four-letter words ending in “Where is that bloody Princess Longknife when I need her?”

“Here,” Kris announced, as she entered the bridge, cane and legs moving with purpose, aiming for her battle station at Weapons with all speed and only a touch of light-headedness she tried to ignore.

The petty officer second class at Kris’s station kept the targeting crosshairs on the now self-proclaimed pirate ketch . . . and her finger well away from the firing button.

That was Kris’s business.

“Do something about that,” Captain Drago said, waving a hand at the forward screen that the pirate now filled. “And don’t let them make a mess on my ship.”

“Will do, Skipper,” Kris told the contract ship captain, slipping into the seat just vacated by the petty officer. Kris had gotten just enough of a glance at the pirate to answer the question she’d had about the ropes and cordage crisscrossing the balloot.

At the moment, three or four dozen space-suited cutthroats used the ropes as handholds, tie-downs, or wraparounds for their legs. The space suits had been painted up with frightening sights. Tiger mouths roared, skulls gaped, and heads dripped blood and gore from their cut throats.

Kris knew this was deadly serious, but she had a barely controlled urge to offer the pirates candy and tell them their Halloween costumes were worth all the work they’d put into them.

She shook off that whimsy as she surveyed the rifles, pistols, machetes, and poles with gleaming hooks at the end of them that the freebooters were waving with bloody intent.

This was no time for a joke.

I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT, Nelly put in.

NOT NOW, NELLY. “Chief, talk to me about those boarders.”

From his station at Sensors, Chief Beni shook his head. “Their suits are not armored. Hardly any two of them are the same, except for a couple of dozen emergency suits. You know, the kind you find under your seat on a civilian shuttle. No telling how old they are. The paint jobs look nasty, but if you ask me, I think most of the paint’s there to patch up the holes.”

“But if they get aboard my ship . . .” the captain began.

“They won’t,” Kris cut him off. “Captain Montoya, are you watching all this?”

“From the drop bay, Commander. I’ve got four of my best sharpshooters in each of the four LACs. We’ll be ready to launch as soon as the sailors get the canopies off them.”

The LACs weren’t going planetside this trip; the canopies would only block the aim of the Marines. And keep the pirates from seeing just how much of the wrong stuff they’d bit into.

“I’ve also got Marines in armored space suits at every entry hatch on the
Wasp
ready to either defend or step outside and sweep up our overly optimistic revenue collectors.”

“At the moment, they aren’t using the scam that they’re government officials,” Kris said, though they could quickly fall back on it the instant Kris and Jack’s Marines blew their pirate business to shreds. What Kris would do if their leader started waving the credentials of a customs officer or drug-enforcement-inspection warrant was something she’d think about when it happened.

“Jack, let me know when you’re ready to launch,” Kris said.

“
Mary Ellen Carter
, you are not venting your reactor,” the pirate pointed out. “That’s not smart.”

“LACs away on my mark,” Jack announced. “LAC-1 . . . mark. LAC-2 . . . mark. LAC-3 . . . mark. LAC-4 . . . mark. All LACs away.”

“Running won’t do you no good. The planet below is our country,” the pirate growled, as the LACs came in view and were mistaken for evacuation pods.

“We’re not running,” Kris said, mashing her commlink. “Pirate off our starboard beam, this is the Wardhaven Armed Corvette
Wasp
, and this is Commander Kris Longknife. Cut your engines and throw your weapons over the side. Surrender peacefully, and you can plead your case to a court. Keep this noise up, and we’ll reduce you to ash. Guns, run out the lasers.”

There was a slight motion on the ship as the four 24-inch pulse lasers were run out of where they hid under the
Wasp
’s merchant paint job.

The sight must have been appalling to those hanging on to the balloot. Machetes quit waving, pistols and rifles just kind of hung there in midspace.

“Good God, what’s a Longknife doing out here?” came over a live mike among the pirates.

“I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.”

“We can’t outrun them.”

Suddenly, the pirate ketch took off at full power.

Unfortunately, it was still aimed right at the
Wasp
.

“Get us out of here,” Captain Drago demanded.

“I’ll try, Skipper,” Sulwan replied from the navigation station. “But they’re awful close.”

“Shoot ’em, Longknife!” he demanded.

“They’re too close,” Kris answered. “I can’t bring the lasers to bear.”

The
Wasp
’s lasers all were pretty much limited to targets straight ahead of her. Kris could swing the ship . . .

This close, whatever she did would be a mess.

“Collision,” she shouted into her commlink. “Prepare for collision.”

And Kris remembered she hadn’t yet put on her own seat belt.

The petty officer second class grabbed at Kris’s waist as the two ships came together.

The collision point was well off both ships’ centers of gravity. The balloot filled with reaction mass did a passable job as a bumper, absorbing some of the force, spreading it out.

And sending both ships reeling away from each other in drunken twists and spins.

For someone with a working inner ear, it was bad. For Kris, not yet recovered from her last session as the duck in a shooting gallery, it was worse.

Kris’s vision went gray, with the weirdest pink and purple polka dots. Her recently enjoyed breakfast, fortunately light, got an eviction notice and left hastily.

The petty officer must have seen it coming; she had a burp bag over Kris’s mouth before Kris knew she needed one.

On the forward screen, cameras still tracked the pirates and their perils. Several were knocked loose from the balloot. A few collided with the
Wasp
and grabbed handholds. Several did not and began what would be short-lived careers as independent satellites.

And, of course, there was one guy in every crowd who couldn’t get with the program.

One pirate had a rifle and intended to use it. He brought his weapon up to take aim—something not easily done with his standard-suit gloves and helmet.

You had to respect his commitment. Three Marine sharpshooters in the LACs showed him all the respect his folly deserved. They put him under fire even as he struggled to make his senseless move.

The pirate’s shot went wild. The rounds from three different Marines cut through the bull’s-eye that was his heart. Six streams of pulsing blood jetted him away from the pirate craft, twisting and spinning his quickly freezing body.

The other pirates followed this display of Marine accuracy and gently shoved any weapons they still had off into their own orbits.

“Jack, can you and your Marines police up this mess?” Kris asked, wishing for some water to clean out her mouth. The petty officer must have qualified at mind reading because she had a water bottle at hand.

“Don’t expect we’ll have any trouble, Commander,” came back from Jack, as Kris added a mouthful of filthy water to the burp bag and handed it to the second-class with a grateful smile.

Kris strapped herself into her station chair as she considered her next problem. For some reason, Kris’s ears were happiest when her fanny was firmly strapped to something. Especially now that the
Wasp
was in zero gee.

A zero gee that Sulwan announced was acting on a ship now steady in orbit.

It was nice of other people to solve Kris’s problems. Now it was time for her to solve a few herself. “Penny, can you and the chief raise me someone dirtside with even a tiny bit of authority?”

“We can try,” the Navy lieutenant said.

Five minutes later, they had someone on the radio.

“I’m freeholder Annam son Jendon,” the deeply tanned face on the main screen said for identification. “Only reason I have my own radio station is because I have got this pond we occasionally use for a backup lander drop.”

“What’s wrong with the main airport?” Kris asked. The largest town on Kaskatos did have a port with a ten-thousand-meter runway, but it had yet to say a word or show a beacon or light.

“Ma’am, you have to understand, Lander’s Rest has had a lot of folks dropped on its runway lately. I can’t really say whether or not the place is just busted up or unwilling to take another empty belly. It could be both.”

“What’s the situation on Kaskatos?” Kris asked.

“Ma’am, I really don’t feel comfortable talking on an open radio. The powers that be spread the word real fast when you showed up at the jump point that it wouldn’t be smart to make any signals to you. Now that you done for the pirates, I’m willing to talk to you, but there’s no telling who’s listening and what offense they might take. I’m just a farmer trying to keep flesh and spirit together in times gone bad.”

“Would you mind if I dropped down and talked with you?” Kris asked. “I’ve got a couple of containers aboard of famine biscuits. Taste can be monotonous, but they do keep body and soul alive.”

“Thank you, ma’am, I don’t mind if you do,” he said, then added in a soft whisper. “I just wish you hadn’t mentioned the food on the radio. I expect I’ll be getting visitors besides you.”