Kris Longknife: Resolute

by Mike Shepherd

  “So they did send us a Longknife,” she said, not looking up.

  “Just a young one,” Kris countered.

  “A Longknife is a Longknife. The old ones are doing you. The young ones are dreaming of when they’ll be big enough to do you. Which one are you?” she said, looking Kris’s way. The eyes held Kris. Whether the frumpy outer show was real or fake, the eyes were a piercing blue that cut deep. There was ice around them, too. They took Kris in, weighed her to the last milligram and found her . . . worth keeping an eye on. She leaned back from her computer and kept those eyes locked on Kris.

  “I’m Kris Longknife,” the Navy lieutenant said. “I commanded at Wardhaven.”

  “You are that one,” the woman nodded slowly in agreement. She let that hang in the warm, summer-filled air for a moment before posing her next question. “And I am Marta Torn. What brings you to our neck of the backwoods?”

  Kris had a dozen answers to that, but none got past the woman’s eyes. “They didn’t have any other job for me. I think they’re hoping I’ll hang around here, get bored, and resign.”

  The woman snorted. “I think you just told me the truth. But it will serve as good as any lie. Nobody’ll believe that.”

  Kris shrugged. “None of them ever crossed Billy Longknife.”

  “That’s the fate of every kid hatched, honey. Mommy, Poppy are never happy with you. Happy the parent who finally realizes the kids are their own best judge of what’s good for them. God help the kid who gives in and lets Mommy and Poppy rule.”

  “Any chance you could talk to my mother, father about that?”

  The woman laughed, a big one that started low in her chest and reached all the way to her eyes. “If they ain’t listened to you, what makes you think they’ll listen to me?”

  “Speaking of listening . . . or talking where talking’s not all that wanted, I’m kind of the new commander of Naval District 41 and it’s going rather strange. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Steve Kovar and have a little talk with him?”

  The woman tapped her computer. “He should have been here by now. It’s Tuesday afternoon, so he’s driving a cab.”

  “I thought he’d be running a chicken ranch?”

  “He does, and cabbies, too. You can ask him about that. I think I just heard the cab pull up.”

  The front door of Ops opened and a short fellow in jeans and a flannel shirt walked in. His red hair was long and his beard shaggy. “You got any baggage?” was his only question.

  “Only a one-day hop, down and back,” Kris said. “You will see that my shuttle is refueled,” Kris said back to Marta.

  “I guess your card is good for it,” the Ops manager agreed. Steve gave the woman a raised eyebrow. “She’s using her own card. No Navy IOU from her.”

  Steve shook his head ruefully and turned for the door; the Navy had to hurry to catch up. The cab had four doors in front. About halfway to the rear, it turned into a pick-up. Well, this was the Rim; everybody worked.

  Kris settled in the front seat beside Steve; Jack and Beni shared the back. The former commander of Naval District 41 took off, spieling a monologue about the crops in view. “We export the most prized, single-malt whiskeys this side of Old Scotland. Or the new one. And our wines are highly prized as well. We also grow several modified crops for feedstock to the pharmacy industry. Chance is proud of its trade balance. We import only the critical items needed for our growing industry. Fifteen of our twenty largest cities have their own fusion reactors. The others are making use of our natural waterpower.”

  “I got that briefing on the way out,” Kris said.

  “Yes, but no briefing gives you the smell of the thing. The pride in the workmanship,” the man pointed out. “Look around.”

  Kris did; they were coming over a slight rise. Behind stretched fields of grain. Almost lost in them were the tower and two long runways. Ahead, in a shallow bowl, was the city of Last Chance, stretching along both sides of the wide An’Ki River. There were tall buildings, none as tall as those on Wardhaven, but still, the city compared with several of the smaller metropolitan centers back home.

  “Looks nice,” Kris said. “Why name it Last Chance?”

  “It was intentional. Place like Greenland back on Earth, Greenfeld with the Peterwalds, are intended to fake people into thinking they’re headed for a great place to live. Folks that settled Last Chance didn’t want those kind. They wanted folks looking for a challenge. Willing to fight a planet for their future. Our population’s over a hundred million. We’ve got no unemployment to speak of. We like it here.”

  That hadn’t been in Kris’s briefing. Oh, the raw numbers, yes. But the attitude. Hmm. Something to think about.

  “How do you like my station?” That question still showed pride of ownership even if he wasn’t interested in taking Kris for a change-of-command tour.

  “Very clean. Very shipshape. Very empty.”

  Steve laughed. “Yes, I imagine it is very empty.”

  “You know, anyone could have come along and grabbed it. You’re just two jumps from Peterwald space now that the Greenfeld Confederacy pressured Brenner’s Pass into joining them.”

  “Yes, but no one did until you came along and took it.”

  “It’s a Wardhaven command.”

  “Is it? Ask Marta Torn back there how long it took her to get payment from Wardhaven for my chits. Ask any merchants I wrangled supplies from.” There was raw anger behind those words.

  Kris chose to watch the road. It had widened into four lanes as they passed through a residential area, and needed the extra lanes for the amount of traffic sharing the road with them.

  “Where we going?” she finally asked.

  “I figured on dropping you on the mayor’s doorstep. Ron Torn, you met his mom back at the port. Let him handle you. We don’t have a planetary government. Each city has a mayor and takes care of itself. Kind of like the classical Greeks.”

  Kris recognized the reference. “Those city-states didn’t do so well when the Persian Empire took an interest in them.”

  “But they did fine up until then. And seeing how small we are, and how much we’ve been ignored by all the Empire builders, we kind of figure we can keep on keeping on. At least we did until we found ourselves entertaining a Longknife brat.” He softened that with a wry smile. A very small smile.

  “If I understand your defense posture,” Jack said from the back seat. “It’s to make like roadkill in the ditch and hope no vulture takes an interest in you.”

  Steve glanced over his shoulder. “I should have expected a Marine to put it that delicately. But yes. You got it in one.”

  “It won’t work,” Kris said.

  “Says you. Tell it to the mayor. You’ll like him. He’s even less likely to buy what you’re selling than his mom.”

  While Kris absorbed those twists, Steve pulled out of traffic to an unloading zone in front of a tall building of concrete and gleaming glass. Waiting for her was a tall fellow in slacks, a long sleeve white shirt, and sweater vest. He studied her with his mother’s blue eyes and looked uninterested in buying anything she was selling . . . the standard face of an opposition politician. He let her open her own door. Once she and her team were on their own feet, he offered her his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Ron Torn, Mayor of Last Chance.”

  Kris did the introductions of her own crew.

  “You hungry,” the mayor asked.

  “You bet,” the chief cut in. “All we had for breakfast was those ration boxes someone left out. And for supper, too.”

  Steve joined the group. “Any of you know how to cook?”

  “Peanut butter on toast,” Beni said. Jack shook his head.

  “Jack says I boil water very nicely,” Kris offered.

  Steve looked hurt at the skill level of his replacements. “I guess I’ll take the chief over to The Old Camp Store. They’ve got travel chow that is a step or three above Army issue.”

  “I’m y
ours,” Beni said, arms open wide.

  “Get some fresh eggs,” Jack said. “It can’t be all that hard to scramble a few.”

  “And fresh coffee,” Kris added. “And bread and cold cuts. I can make a sandwich.” Beni started looking very poor as the list lengthened. “Nelly, give the chief a credit voucher” got a happy smile from him. Steve rolled his eyes. But no one made any nasty comments about a helpless damsel in distress. Maybe she’d outrun her Princess label.

  Kris and Jack followed Ron into the office building. “Nice city hall,” she told him in the spacious foyer, cool in black marble floors, gray granite walls.

  “We only rent space here. Not even a whole floor. Chance is death on big government. Keep the beast small and out of the way. ‘Nothing important is ever done by government.’”

  “You don’t look like the type to settle for something that doesn’t do anything,” Kris said as they entered the elevator.

  “My family curse. Great-grampa was central to raising Chance’s troops for the last campaigns of the Iteeche Wars. Folks just kind of expect a Torn to go into government. I think they leave it to us.” Kris didn’t see an opening there to talk defense and decided to put it off for a while. Going hard from the start hadn’t gotten her anywhere with the lieutenant. Maybe polite chitchat would show her a better opening.

  The mayor’s office was on the thirteenth floor. “We get a discount for taking that unlucky number.”

  “Why didn’t they skip it?”

  “I think they liked the idea of our address starting with thirteen,” Ron said, opening the door for Kris. The small waiting room held a woman at a computer, some chairs and a table covered with readers. The mayor led Kris and Jack into his own office.

  The view from Ron’s corner office was spectacular. As he offered Kris a chair she said, “I’m surprised a government that has so little respect gets such a grand view.”

  Ron waved Jack toward a chair. “I think the business folks want me to see what they’re doing. Admire it. Be intimidated by it. Which do you think?” Again those blue eyes were on her, now with a hint of a smile at the edges. Was it for her, or the sardonic twist of their conversation? Hard to say.

  “You must have some tax base,” she said, turning the topic to something Billy Longknife’s daughter would. Something neutral they could talk about. She wanted to keep him talking about his world. Not her issues. Not for a while.

  “Yes, there’s a small tax on imports. Not exports, mind you. But if we buy something off-planet, I get my milligram of flesh. Tells you how much we want to be self-sufficient.”

  “It can’t be enough for essential services,” Kris said, taking in the view and measuring it against what she knew of the cost it took to support a place this size.

  “Fire department is mostly volunteer, with a few full-time folks to hold it together for the rest. Same for the police, though we don’t have much crime. What with near-full employment, most everyone is too busy to bother with stealing from their neighbor. Again, I do have a few full-time members of the constabulary. Most are older folks, the kind of grandma or grandpa types who can settle disturbances with a stern glare and a few reasonable words.” Ron’s eyes broke from Kris to sweep the vista of his city. “It may look big, but we are pretty small town in our attitudes. It’s embarrassing if your kid gets in trouble, more trouble than Grandmama expects,” he said, with a wink for Kris. Then he shrugged.

  “There’s a lot to like about Chance. Wear out a pair of shoes here, and you’ll never leave.”

  Kris glanced down at her nearly new shoes. “That what happened to Lieutenant Kovar?”

  “Didn’t he tell you his story?”

  “It didn’t come up. We were discussing other things.”

  Ron raised an eyebrow at that. The crinkle around his eyes got thoughtful. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell his story. Then again, maybe my mom knows his story better than he does.” There was a pause. Kris let the silence hang.

  “Mom says he was a real hard charger when he came out here. Not bothered at all to find that he was the only officer here besides the captain. When that captain retired and left before his replacement got here, Mom says he was really tickled to be acting commander of his very own Naval District.”

  Ron must have read the question in Kris’s eyes. “No, not strutting around making a big thing of it. Steve’s too serious to let rank go to his head. No. But serious as a heart attack about doing a good job of it. Because that was what the next Commander suffered on the last leg of his trip out here. They brought him off the boat on a stretcher, and then wheeled him right back on board. Question about when he’d recover kind of left the command up in the air for, oh, six, nine months. Then they appointed a new boss for 41. Who wrangled new orders while in transit. I think the Jonah curse was already pretty plain to see. At least for anyone not here on Chance. Somehow, Earth got busy with other things and never did bother appointing a new commander. Glitch in the computer. Who knows?”

  “And Lieutenant Kovar just sat here and did nothing?” Kris could understand a year or three. But fifteen?

  “Well, there was a lass. Lovely girl. My mom’s youngest sister. She seemed to make his exile quite survivable.”

  Those blue eyes smiled at Kris. Edges nicely crinkled. Lips full. Was he offering to soften her exile. Did she really want to keep knocking her head against all the stone walls people put in the way of her Navy career? That was not a question she needed to answer today. Time was something she had plenty of. But no reason not to answer one question. NELLY, IS RON MARRIED?

  CHANCE CENTRAL RECORDS SHOWS HIM UNMARRIED, KRIS. BUT I SHOULD POINT OUT THAT MY REVIEW OF THE FILES SHOWS THAT THE LAST MARRIAGE ENTRY IS DATED OVER A YEAR AGO. BIRTHS AND DEATHS ENTRIES ARE UP TO DATE AS OF YESTERDAY, BUT OTHER DATA IS BATCH ENTERED AT SPORADIC INTERVALS.

  Right. Whenever they can get a volunteer to do it.

  Kris realized she was letting the conversation sag, and not on a note that she wanted to emphasize. She grabbed for something and her mouth opened on, “And he wasn’t bothered by the lack of active duty personnel assigned to District 41?”

  “Maybe the Chief should answer that one. Chief,” he yelled.

  The door opened in a moment; the woman who’d been occupied with the computer asked, “What you bellowing about, Mr. Torn.”

  “The Navy here wondered how it came to pass that all Steve was honchoing were reservists. You, being the Chief of Personnel up there for so long, I thought you might give her your take on why he put up with all your lip and back talk.”

  The woman, only slightly shorter than Kris, and with middle age helping to fill out her curves, shook her head. “The real question is why I put up with your lip,” she said, but she came in. Jack leapt to his feet to give her a seat, which she took with full nobility, leaving the Marine to hold up a wall.

  The chief put one leg up on the desk, then crossed the other pants-suited one over the first and leaned back comfortably. When Ron did the same, Kris made to imitate them, and almost went over backward in her chair.

  “Oops. Sorry,” Ron said. “You got the bad chair.”

  Kris got herself balanced upright, back to prim and princess. And made a note of just who rated comfortable chairs from Ron . . . and who didn’t.

  “I don’t think the lieutenant noticed what BuPers was doing to him, not for a while. A couple of permanent parties shipped in after him. Other folks shipped out. Then more shipped out and no one came. And the budget would come through with more in the reserve account for active days and less in the active-duty account. Come second year, when we were down to just four permanent and him, he and I had a long talk about what we saw going on. I told him you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, especially when no one’s offering you a sow to de-ear.”

  “What did the lieutenant say?” Kris asked.

  “Something about how did they expect him to defend a whole sector of space with nothing but part-timers.” That was a sentiment Kris could
agree with. But it sure didn’t sound like Steve the Taxi Guy that she’d talked to this morning. Then again, ten years can change anyone. Or wear them down.

  “What did you do?”

  “The rest of us part-timers ratcheted up our ball game. Had to when all four of the active duty types shipped out together. The real bitc—ah problem was that they didn’t allow for us to recruit any new reservists. Leastwise, not to start with. Fill the hours, but do it with the same old hands. Something about saving on training. We did what we could. And some of us had kid sisters, little brothers that maybe tagged along and took up some of the slack. You know, you can learn a whole lot about operating a 6-inch laser in makie-learnie fashion.”

  Kris wasn’t sure she’d like to trust her defenses to someone who’d picked up their laser training as monkey see, monkey do. Then, no one was offering her anyone with any kind of training.

  “You said ‘at first.’ That changed?”

  “Yeah, right about the time you and Earth split the sheets, they let us know that anyone who wanted to join up was only too welcome. By that time we old hands were kind of sour on all things blue, and we also noticed that things were more than a little bit hot in this place or that. You must have noticed. News stories tended to mention that you were there.”

  Kris nodded as innocently as facts allowed.

  “So I told my kid sister that if she wanted to join and get paid for what she’d been doing, I’d tear her arm off and beat her over the head with the bloody stump.” The chief eyed the ceiling. “I recall my objections to my sister were the gentlest of several we all made. Anyway, I called everyone’s attention as to how all of us were coming up on retirement about the same time.”

  “And you all went out together,” Kris said.

  “Most of us joined together. During that long peace we sure as blazes didn’t join to fight anyone. No, we joined for the friendship, and we quit as friends.”