Kris Longknife: Defender

by Mike Shepherd

  “Thank you, sir,” Kris said.

  Without any further encouragement, the fellow left, leaving Kris and Jack alone. Kris stayed seated on the bed. Should she and Jack put it to use immediately?

  Kris found herself surprised on how unsure she was. Shy even.

  Jack kicked off his shoes, saying, “Follow me,” and headed out to the beach. He walked the full distance down to the water. It was low tide, so that was quite a walk.

  Leaving Kris to wonder what was going through his mind.

  She was a woman; the owner had piqued her interest about clothes. She checked out the closet with a skimpy two-piece swimsuit painted on it. There was a big, colorful muumuu. There were several pairs of shorts and tank tops from nice to so skimpy Mother would never have let Kris out of the house in them, even in college. Not that Mother knew all that much what Kris wore in college since she and Father had moved into Government House.

  Even with the house to herself, Kris kept to Mother’s standards. It wouldn’t help Father’s next election to have a photo of his daughter dressed inappropriately.

  Hey, baby ducks, Kris could almost hear Abby saying, remember, other side of the galaxy.

  The swimsuits went from skimpy to Oh My God bits of string and not much else. What had the sign said at the restaurant? TOTAL NUDITY NOT ALLOWED.

  Kris eyed her closet and wondered where “Total Nudity” ended or began.

  She grabbed the muumuu and stepped into the bathroom to change. She had the cottage to herself, but she really was feeling shy. What if Jack returned when she was only half-dressed?

  The bathroom was nice. A large tub, clearly intended for two. The shower seemed fully open to the outside, but no, when she looked closer, she spotted shutters.

  They didn’t look like they’d been closed for a while.

  Dressed in a muumuu and nothing else, she followed Jack to the shore. He seemed so intensely focused on the ocean, Kris was almost afraid to disturb him, but she put a hand on his back and began to gently rub it.

  “Thank you,” Jack said. “That feels good.”

  “I’m glad then. A penny for your thoughts?” she said.

  It took him a while to answer. When he did, he surprised Kris. “I love the ocean, and it scares me.”

  Kris owed Jack a whole lot more than a penny for that. Never in her life would she have guessed it. “You’ve got to explain that.”

  “I know you love sailing.”

  “It’s some of my best memories as a kid. We quit sailing after Eddy died. The family did, but I could still get some of my friends to go out sailing. And yes, I loved the freedom of it.”

  “But you were sailing a lake. Did you ever sail so far out you couldn’t see the shore?”

  “The lake was too small for that.”

  “The ocean is a totally different matter. It’s been here for billions of years, waves pounding on the shore, turning rocks to pebbles, and pebbles to sand. The ocean goes on forever.”

  “Yes,” Kris said, aware of the geology lesson, but not at all sure what this meant to Jack.

  “And it will go on for billions of years more after our bones have turned to dust.”

  “My, aren’t you the pessimist. We could screw up, let the aliens take the planet, drain the oceans, then no more billion years.”

  “Now who’s the pessimist? I wasn’t thinking of the ocean going on after us as something pessimistic. I was thinking that our time is so short, we have to be fools to waste it.”

  “Oh,” Kris said. She found that reply on the weak side. “Good point.” she added, and felt like a bigger fool.

  “You come here often?” she finally said, throwing in a smile and hoping he’d forgive her loss for words.

  “To the beach, not nearly enough. Here, only once with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. Really spectacular girl, did I tell you? Not so great a conversationalist at times, but wow, can she blow up ships!”

  “But can’t open a can, cook spaghetti, or warm water,” Kris added, smiling as she enjoyed his choice of words. He saw a woman she could never believe existed.

  He put his arm around her. Now it was him massaging her back. Just her back, nothing more.

  “Can we sit down?” she asked.

  “You’re dressed for it. Do I really want to get my greens sandy? Will you stay here while I go change?”

  “Make it quick. A Sailor might come along and ask me to show him a good time.”

  “You warn him that if he takes off with my girl, I will track him down and beat him to a pulp.”

  Kris considered several replies, and was leaning toward “Can I watch the fight?” when she thought better of it. “I’ll warn him off and send him on his way, a sadder but wiser man.”

  “You do that,” Jack shouted over his shoulder as he jogged for the cottage.

  Kris sat down cross-legged. The damp sand quickly soaked through the thin material. She’d even left her spider silk behind. When she’d put them in a bureau drawer, she’d found no underwear.

  Interesting.

  She’d also taken a peek into Jack’s closet. There were shorts, from long to scandalously short. Shirts from casual to hardly enough to keep the sun off. Swimsuits from indecent to “Oh My God, Why Bother?” and some colorful thin scarves that you could see right through. Lava-lava she thought they were called.

  Kris sat patiently, eyes on the ocean, ever-changing, yet ever the same, waiting to see what Jack showed up in.

  His shorts were long, and his shirt would not have been out of place in a casual bar back on Wardhaven. He settled down beside her, then winced. “The sand didn’t look that wet.”

  “Ocean, Jack. It’s been wet for, what did you say, billions of years?”

  “Yes, but what am I going to wear to supper tonight? These were the only decent shorts in the closet.”

  “And this was the only muumuu in mine.”

  Jack looked sidewise at Kris. “You think your granny did more than just reserve us a cottage? You think she chose our wardrobe?”

  “She was a Longknife. Long ago, admittedly.”

  “I’m sorry, Kris. I hope you won’t take offense, but from where I sit in the cheap seats, once a Longknife, always a Longknife.”

  “Honey, you have not been sitting in the cheap seats. You’ve spent nearly as much time in the same room with my Grampa Ray as I have lately, and you’re closer to him.”

  “That’s so I can jump between you two if you ever come to blows.”

  “Whose side would you be on if it ever happened?” Kris asked. More than curious.

  “Raymond is my king,” Jack said. “But you are my girl.”

  Kris couldn’t help but grin. Not “my primary,” “my girl.”

  “You’re the first guy to call me his girl in a long time.”

  “There was someone before me? Should I be jealous?”

  “Nope, he was a dork. Just wanted to be able to say he’d scored on a Longknife, and I was foolish or lonely enough to let him get close to me. Mother had warned me about boys like that. I ignored or forgot the only good advice Mother ever gave me.”

  “I admit, I was jealous of that fellow on Chance. Mayor what’s-his-name,” Jack admitted.

  Kris got pensive. “Yeah, that one had prospects. But he took one good look at what happens around a Longknife and beat feet for the exit.” Kris sighed. “Like they all do.”

  They watched the ocean in silence for a long while.

  “Why haven’t you beat feet or married one of the other girls around me? Amanda Kutter, now, she’s got to be the most beautiful girl a guy could ask for.”

  “She’s not bad-looking,” Jack admitted.

  Kris elbowed him in the ribs.

  “But she took the ticket home, remember? No way I was leaving your side with one hell of a battle c
oming up.”

  “But it was ship to ship. Nothing for your Marines to do.”

  “There was that mining concern Admiral Krätz wanted us to capture. Don’t forget. You got yourself shot down trying to get a good look at it. Tell me you could have gotten that canopy open without my strong back.”

  “No, I could not have, and I’d likely have burned to death or been blown to bits when the antimatter containment went, or worse, been captured. You are so right, my wise and eternally vigilant security advisor.”

  “And my Marines would have been massacred when they flew into the trap the mining head had set for them.”

  Kris gave Jack a puzzled look. “I do dimly remember a wise and perpetually overaggressive young woman who has insisted on that point.”

  For several long, peaceful minutes, they enjoyed the ever-changing waves.

  “We have saved each other’s asses a few times, haven’t we?” Kris said.

  “And, if I may be permitted to say, and dredge up from memory, yours is a most beautiful ass.”

  “Yes, you may, kind sir,” Kris said, “because if my dim and fading memory is right, yours is a most spectacular ass in its own right.”

  “But not as round and smooth as yours,” Jack countered.

  “But more muscled and hairy,” Kris replied.

  “My ass is not hairy. It has a fine down, maybe, but not hairy.”

  “Hairy as a monkey’s,” Kris insisted. “I know. I spent some wonderful time stroking it while you were sleeping.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping, I was enjoying your touch. And it is not hairy as a monkey.”

  “It’s your rear. You never look at it in the mirror.”

  As things were progressing, Kris half expected Jack to drop his shorts right there in front of her and twist himself into a pretzel to see his own rear. She found herself looking forward to where that might lead.

  The dinner bell rang for supper.

  Jack gave Kris a questioning raised eyebrow.

  For all of five seconds, Kris considered her options. The problem was she hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the Wasp, and her tummy was very empty, and while the thought of filling it from something other than food was getting more attractive by the moment, she doubted it would quiet the rumbling.

  She offered Jack her hand up.

  She enjoyed rubbing the sand off Jack’s shorts while he dusted her behind with long and loving strokes.

  She reconsidered how hungry she was, but her tummy rumbled again.

  “I wonder what they mean by ‘Total Nudity Not Allowed’?” Jack asked no one in particular.

  “You are such a guy,” Kris muttered.

  “Don’t tell me you won’t be checking out the guys. I saw what was in my closet.”

  “Did you check out mine?”

  “I have the right to remain silent because you are way too good at blowing up ships.”

  “Smart man. Educable. I should keep you.”

  “Besides, my commission is for the duration, and I think you just started a war that’s going to have a very long duration.”

  “Promise me we aren’t going to talk about that. Anything that happened before the Voyage of Discovery is fair game. My Granny Rita is fair game, but the bug-eyed monsters who look too damn much like us are out of bounds.”

  “I’m sorry, Kris. You shouldn’t have had to tell me that. The stars are coming out. Aren’t they lovely?” Jack said, changing the subject.

  They walked to the restaurant, discussing stars. And they spotted their first songbird. Apparently it was a night creature, and it sang the most lovely song as it flitted among the trees. More birds, with different songs, joined in.

  The walk became quite pleasant.

  11

  They arrived to discover they had the place to themselves. The owner who also acted as the receptionist gave them just a bit of an eye but then offered them their choice of seating.

  They chose a quiet corner. They sat with their backs to the rest of the dining room and enjoyed a lovely view of the ocean. The moon was already coming up, huge and orange in the sea air.

  While they savored the view, two more couples arrived. The guys were in shorts and shirts like Jack. The women were in muumuus. All showed wet from having sat on the sand. Kris and Jack shared smiles with each other, but the two couples settled in different quiet corners, so they didn’t get to smile at them.

  The waitress finally arrived; she wore a dress flowered like Kris’s muumuu, but cut tight into a sheath to show off her curves. She offered them a choice of fish or fish. She named both types, but they meant nothing to Kris. For a moment, the three stared at each other. Then Jack led off.

  “Is one of them white fish and the other dark fish?”

  The waitress stared blankly and renamed the fish. Apparently, if you were from here, you knew your fish.

  “Okay, this is what we’ll do,” Jack said. “I will take one of them. Please serve the lady the other.” That satisfied the waitress, and she bounced off.

  “Enjoying the view,” Kris whispered.

  “I’m wondering why they didn’t provide one of those for your closet.”

  Kris started to say something about how she had nothing to fill out the top but swallowed it. Jack said so very many nice things about her. Why should she repeat all her negatives? Especially since he wouldn’t agree with her. The big liar.

  She changed the subject. “So what are we going to do if I hate the fish I get?”

  “You will switch with me.”

  “And if you hate the fish I got?”

  “I will be a gentleman and eat it so my lady can enjoy herself.”

  Kris considered that. Jack had an all-encompassing definition of chivalry. “And if I don’t like either of them?”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist. We’re surrounded by a lovely view. Notice how the moon is causing the waves to glow. We’re not on duty. No one’s trying to kill us. Have faith. We’ll love both fish and end up feeding tidbits to each other from our plates.”

  Kris considered that. “Okay. You carrying?”

  Jack scowled. “Yes. You?”

  “Yes,” Kris answered. “But I left the spider-silk bodysuit off when I put on the muumuu.”

  “So you and I are half on vacation.”

  “Well, that’s more than I’ve been since college. Even there, most of my summer vacations were spent covering campaign gigs for Father.”

  “You enjoy them?”

  “Usually.”

  “I loved my work at summer camps. I badly needed the money to help me through the school year. I enjoyed mountains, the hiking and fishing and the kids. Most of them.”

  “Let me guess, the rich, spoiled brats weren’t in the ‘most of them.’”

  “Sadly yes, but let’s not go there.”

  “Gladly. They were a pain in my butt, too. Trust me, the Great Billy Longknife, Man of the People, would not have one of his kids misbehaving in public or otherwise.”

  “But the other rich kids . . . ?” Jack left the question hanging.

  Kris refused to rise to the bait. “So, you earned money summers to pay for college. What kind of college scholarship did you have? Let me guess. You’re big. It could have been football.”

  Jack silently shook his head.

  “You’re tall and fast. Basketball?”

  This time Jack grinned as he shook his head.

  “Soccer? Father played soccer in college.”

  Again Jack shook his head, now grinning from ear to ear.

  “Baseball? Boxing? Wrestling? Swimming?”

  “I would have accepted a swimming scholarship if I’d been offered one.”

  “Okay, you win. I give up. After five years of you constantly at my elbow, telling me when and where I can pee, I don’t know what spo
rts scholarship you had in college.”

  “I do not tell you when you can go pee,” Jack said.

  “Scholarship? Scholarship? What scholarship?”

  “Golfing,” Jack said.

  “Golfing!”

  The conversation had to be put on hold. The owner dropped by their table to apologize for the delay in their meal. “I know we rang the dinner bell, and I know we promised you that you could eat from six on, but our guests are usually much later. Our chef only does two specials a night and we don’t want them to be cold for our later guests, so, I’m afraid you are having to wait much longer than anyone would expect. Could I offer you some drinks on the house?”

  Jack raised an eyebrow to Kris.

  She took a deep breath. “As Granny Rita told you, we are unfamiliar with much of what you have to offer. I do not drink alcoholic beverages. Do you have tea or something like it?”

  “We have several teas. Would you like yours cold or hot?”

  “Cold,” Kris said.

  “Cold tea for me, too,” Jack said.

  The owner left to apologize to the other tables. He did touch base with the waitress, and two tall, cold teas arrived.

  “Jack, you don’t have to take this gentleman stuff to the max. I don’t mind if you have a beer.”

  “I am having the most important conversation of my life with the woman I most love in the galaxy. I’m drinking tea, so I’ll have my wits about me.”

  “You’ll need them,” Kris said. “Golf. You said you played golf in college. There can’t be a lot of money in golf scholarships.”

  “No, there isn’t. But by my junior year, I was head of my class in criminology, and there was a bit of scholarship money for that, thanks to your father. Two small scholarships, odd jobs, I pieced it all together.”

  “You still haven’t said why you chose golf,” Kris insisted.

  “How many men do you know with a football knee, or tennis elbow, which, I must say, can come from basketball or even swimming, not to mention baseball injuries? Besides, baseball was out of the question. I wanted to be a cop. Not a donut-gobbling cop but one of the best. Golf gave me a good eye. By my junior year, I was shooting match level with both pistol and rifle. Also, you do a lot of walking that is good for you but won’t break anything.”